Google promises to build ‘secure’ browsers and keep user data safe, however, the search engine giant has failed been unable to safeguard its bicycles inside its premises from burglars. Google is trying to fix the problem and is experimenting different ways for it. One of the solution that the tech giant has taken is that it has recruited 30 contractors and five vans which are armed with waders and grappling hooks to recover the bikes. However, the company has not been able to retrieve all of them as yet.
Google maintains roughly 1,100 free, multicoloured two-wheelers, known as Gbikes, for its employees to get around on its sprawling campus. The program has inspired copycats across Silicon Valley and beyond. But the tech giant loses 250 bicycles every week from its Mountain View campus. Rented by local residents as well as employees of the firm, Gbikes have shown up at local schools, in neighbours’ lawns, at the bottom of the town creek and on the roof a sports pub.
As per a report by Wall Street Journal,”The disappearances often aren’t the work of ordinary thieves, however. Many residents of Mountain View, a city of 80,000 that has effectively become Google’s company town, see the employee perk as a community service.”
Google is also testing GPS trackers on some of its bikes and locks that only Google employees can open using their cell phones, according to the report.
Google back in 2007 had first launched its bike program back, and later in 2009 switched over to its iconic, multicoloured two-wheelers. In a couple of years, bike sharing switched from a company-wide initiative to an opportunity for Google to change the world. The company launched a $5 million grant to develop more bike-friendly cities, and worked closely with Mountain View to make its local streets as bikable as the city of Copenhagen, the report added. The initiative has been followed by at least 16 other companies in the US, including at Apple, Facebook, and Walmart.
