World Cup 2019: With the ICC Cricket World Cup underway, Google Duo strangely sent push notifications to users around the globe with ads from the Indian Cricket team.
Google had planned to send out a video message from Indian Cricket team captain, Virat Kohli to all Duo users in India. However, they likely messed up with their target audience, and the message was sent to users across the globe.
Users from the US, Canada, Japan, Mexico, and New Zealand, took to Reddit and Twitter to ask Google about the ad.
Anyone else get this random #duo message from @imVkohli? #googleduo #ViratKohli pic.twitter.com/3COS3VxaeK
— Laura Eileen (@Rawr_b4_coffee) May 30, 2019
Google was quick to respond to this situation and confirmed that the notification was not intended to go out to a wide audience. "This evening a video message was accidentally sent by Google to some Duo users. This was not an ad — it was a message that users in India were intended to receive as a thank you if they chose to participate in an upcoming Duo promotion. We are sorry for any confusion this may have caused."
System malfunction! Yesterday our systems accidentally sent an unexpected Duo video message to some users. This was unintentional -- it was only supposed to be a reply to users who sent in their own video message, as part of a promotion in India.
— Justin Uberti (@juberti) May 30, 2019
We're sorry for this glitch and the confusion it created - we recognize this seemed like spam, and are taking steps so it doesn't happen again.
— Justin Uberti (@juberti) May 30, 2019
India have not yet begun their World Cup campaign and will play their first match on June 5 against South Africa.