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Places on Google Maps. Can They Still Be Trusted?

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Re: Places on Google Maps. Can They Still Be Trusted?

#11

Post by mleo »

gniv wrote: post #2

From the article: I think it is a text book example of the main difference in DNA between Google and Apple: Google is all about crowdsourcing. Apple is all about curation. But how does Apple scale discovering new places without crowdsourcing? Relying on business owners is not enough to have decent coverage.

There are 3rd party data providers like Yext that can syndicate the data to different location services customers. Businesses can create and update in Yext and then data gets updated by the location services. If a location services company sources data from multiple independent locations providers such as Yext, Four Square, Yelp, web scraping it can get a profile that a place exists.

Re: Places on Google Maps. Can They Still Be Trusted?

#13

Post by wl »

Some other examples of this kind of thing:

There's a Moorish sovereign citizen group that has a name that is confusingly similar to the US federal government. Their office is labeled a "government office" on Google maps. Every time Google sends me some email telling me about the thousands of people who have been helped by some edit I made years ago, it spurs me to try to correct this location. It's always "not accepted" and it keeps on showing up as a government building. I have no idea what to do at this point, but it seems dangerous to have Google steering people towards a fake government building.

There was also a Kmart that burned down a few years back. Apparently there was a Sears appliance repair service based out of the place. Despite Google having updated aerial and street view imagery showing a fenced, empty lot covered in grass, they never accepted my business no longer exists at this location edits.

Re: Places on Google Maps. Can They Still Be Trusted?

#15

Post by mrguyorama »

grotorea wrote: post #14
mrguyorama wrote: post #12

My favorite is when google "helpfully" sets up a different phone number for a restaurant than their actual phone number for some reason. Super sketchy

You mean the GrubHub "fake" telephone thing or something else?

I believe it's probably a similar situation. Search for a restaurant in google, and click on the "Phone number" portion of the infobox. It often shows two phone numbers; The actual phone number of the restaurant, and a "Google number" that google puts as the primary phone number. I have no reason to believe these businesses did this on purpose, because they give out their actual phone number on menus and advertising. Why is google putting themselves in the middle of this transaction? How is that not a straight up crime?

Re: Places on Google Maps. Can They Still Be Trusted?

#16

Post by WhyNotHugo »

Apple Maps is very incomplete and missing a lot of places.

Google Maps has lots of fictitious locations and routes.

Apple Maps doesn't have biking directions in most places.

Google Maps tells you to bike down the pedestrian line. Or cross through a street with no crossing. Or turn left onto a tunnel that's crossing perpendicular 2m under you (e.g. penetrate through 2 metres of solid ground). I've even had instructions to just bike onto the highway *in the wrong direction* for a few hundred metres.

Google Maps is okay for finding places that don't show u anywhere else, but dangerous for directions and routing.

Organic Maps is surprisingly good with biking directions, but is missing a lot of venues and public transit.

Re: Places on Google Maps. Can They Still Be Trusted?

#17

Post by theoldlove »

HnUser12 wrote: post #4
gniv wrote: post #2

From the article: I think it is a text book example of the main difference in DNA between Google and Apple: Google is all about crowdsourcing. Apple is all about curation. But how does Apple scale discovering new places without crowdsourcing? Relying on business owners is not enough to have decent coverage.

Apple now allows regular users to add new places to maps but it looks like they have a review process. I added a park and they didn’t accept my report until I added photos of the park sign board.

Yeah I don’t buy the premise of the article. Both google and apple accept crowd-sourced places after a review. Google Maps is the big player so it gets more spam attacks, but I don’t think the processes for crowdsourced places are very different between the two.

Description of how to add a place to apple here: https://www.reddit.com/r/applemaps/comments/gruew8/comment/f...

Re: Places on Google Maps. Can They Still Be Trusted?

#18

Post by dharmab »

wl wrote: post #13

Some other examples of this kind of thing: There's a Moorish sovereign citizen group that has a name that is confusingly similar to the US federal government. Their office is labeled a "government office" on Google maps. Every time Google sends me some email telling me about the thousands of people who have been helped by some edit I made years ago, it spurs me to try to correct this location. It's always "not accept…

The edits are more likely to be accepted if you provide an on-the-ground photograph (presumably with EXIF data). I've gotten places updated by submitting photos of signage, posted hours, etc.

Re: Places on Google Maps. Can They Still Be Trusted?

#19

Post by netsharc »

dharmab wrote: post #18
wl wrote: post #13

Some other examples of this kind of thing: There's a Moorish sovereign citizen group that has a name that is confusingly similar to the US federal government. Their office is labeled a "government office" on Google maps. Every time Google sends me some email telling me about the thousands of people who have been helped by some edit I made years ago, it spurs me to try to correct this location. It's always "not accept…

The edits are more likely to be accepted if you provide an on-the-ground photograph (presumably with EXIF data). I've gotten places updated by submitting photos of signage, posted hours, etc.

That makes me want to submit photos of a smoldering crater with modified EXIF data, as proof "the business at this location has been shut down"...
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