How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will • Hacker News Board

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#61

Post by nocman » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 4:29 PM UTC

vinceguidry wrote: post #51

vdaniuk wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the article didn't support the title. The title supported by the article could be "How Google Map Hackers Can Contribute To The Demise Of The Restaurant On A Downhill Trajectory". This is just one sensationalist title.

Why so much hate on the headline? The article itself is perfectly reasonable, so just read and digest that. It sounds like you want to just read the title and understand everything.

Because people get sick of misleading page titles. It is obvious that the title was chosen just to get you to the page. However, the implication of the title is that Google destroyed this business by listing its hours incorrectly. I agree with vdaniuk, the article does not support the title assigned to it. There is substantial evidence to support the position that the restaurant died for reasons other than the incorrect listing of hours.

I realize people choose page titles that are meant to grab your attention, and I don't have a problem with that in general. It just gets tiresome when the article does not discuss what you were led to believe it was going to discuss.

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#62

Post by eightofdiamonds » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 4:33 PM UTC

nicolethenerd wrote: post #42

In case any of you have a business w/ a physical location, yext.com sells a service that lets you manage these details (business hours, location, phone #, etc) across several different sites (Bing, Mapquest, Yahoo, etc + ~50 others), rather than handling them all individually. (Disclaimer: my partner works there - but I don't get a commission or anything :-) Just seemed relevant to the discussion)

Yext can't manage Google listings though which is important to note. No 3rd party is able to directly manage Google listings.

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#63

Post by xorcist » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 4:35 PM UTC

spot wrote: post #58

Vik1ng wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real problem is this google has the half baked crowd-sourcing. Where you actually have a closed system and then let some people crowd source on top of it and have different ranks and people approving. It's the same reason Wikipedia is losing editors, because people don't want to wait for some admin to approve it. In OpenStreetMap as a community project which is know as such people are much more likely to…

OSM is still so irrelevant that the spammers and scammers have not targeted it yet. Once they do, it will have the same problems Google does, but worse because they don't have the resources to fight back. It is much easier to fix mistakes than it is to fight an active adversary.

Your prediction fails to account for the fact that Wikipedia can manage the problem, and they are probably the most important information source there is while still being by far the easiest to edit. What makes you think it is impossible for OSM to do it?

(Also, a bit dishonest to call OSM irrelevant when it is the canonical data source for a number of famous application, including Apple, even if it's not directly applicable to the situation here.)

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#64

Post by eightofdiamonds » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 4:35 PM UTC

Gracana wrote: post #46

nicolethenerd wrote: post #42

In case any of you have a business w/ a physical location, yext.com sells a service that lets you manage these details (business hours, location, phone #, etc) across several different sites (Bing, Mapquest, Yahoo, etc + ~50 others), rather than handling them all individually. (Disclaimer: my partner works there - but I don't get a commission or anything :-) Just seemed relevant to the discussion)

Can yext do anything to protect you from attacks like those mentioned in the linked article?

They can lock down the listing so that only you can edit them with their partner sites. But it wouldn't work in this case since they are not partnered with Google. We just had a presentation from them at my work a few weeks ago.

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#65

Post by sirdogealot » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 4:37 PM UTC

They were in business for 40 years... and Google maps just recently started incorrectly listing their hours.

I highly doubt that the google maps error caused or even contributed to the downfall of their apparently well established business.

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#66

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 4:38 PM UTC

Gracana wrote: post #46

nicolethenerd wrote: post #42

In case any of you have a business w/ a physical location, yext.com sells a service that lets you manage these details (business hours, location, phone #, etc) across several different sites (Bing, Mapquest, Yahoo, etc + ~50 others), rather than handling them all individually. (Disclaimer: my partner works there - but I don't get a commission or anything :-) Just seemed relevant to the discussion)

Can yext do anything to protect you from attacks like those mentioned in the linked article?

[deleted]

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#67

Post by mcguire » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 4:39 PM UTC

eightofdiamonds wrote: post #64

Gracana wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can yext do anything to protect you from attacks like those mentioned in the linked article?

They can lock down the listing so that only you can edit them with their partner sites. But it wouldn't work in this case since they are not partnered with Google. We just had a presentation from them at my work a few weeks ago.

Officially "taking ownership" of a record with Google doesn't prevent community edits?

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#68

Post by dclowd9901 » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 4:40 PM UTC

jokoon wrote: post #60

I always wondered about this, but now it's obvious: google doesn't make sure those business info are accurate, it might have a huge cost to verify those info, for example asking for some paperwork to check. openstreetmap, on the other hand, seems much more trustful on this, since it's moderated a little like wikipedia is. I guess if openstreetmap was more popular, you might start to see similar problems described in…

As a business owner, it's your job to make sure those listings are accurate, just as it would be you would want to make sure the yellow pages had your right phone number. There's no excuse for technological illiteracy or ignorance, and if you don't want to bother to be in charge of your online presence, you had better hire someone for the job.

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#69

Post by chdir » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 4:41 PM UTC

tedunangst wrote: post #45

chdir wrote: post #18

If you are running a popular place, whether you like it or not, you'll end up on Google controlled listings. Unfortunately, there's little help for a non-tech savvy business owner to fix problems with listings or fake reviews or even removal of genuine reviews. This is an area where they need to be held accountable. If you are wielding so much power, you need to handle it responsibly and error in favor of business ow…

If it's your email, can't you just send a password reset?

With Facebook, no. My guess is that if you've verified with a phone number, they make it difficult to reset by an unverified email (they favor the fake user and assume that the email was entered incorrectly). Moreover, I don't want to take over someone's account if they've been ignorant about entering the email incorrectly. They still own the data. However I do report that I didn't create this account. Services like FB blacklist the email address in that case. As a result, I can't use that email in future without giving a photo ID (never gonna happen).

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#70

Post by cratermoon » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 4:41 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #27

drivingmenuts wrote: post #10

This is an example of one of the major problems of crowd-sourcing: trust. There is no way to verify that the integrity of the submitter, who could be giving wrong information due to malice, incompetence, or as a prank. There's entirely too much trust in crowdsourcing.

It works very well for Wikipedia though, but that's because Wikipedia has much more people that care about the information and maintain it. Google Maps lacks that community feeling of providing correct information, probably because it's owned and operated by Google. Maybe local business organizations can provide help in this, have a few people dedicate some of their time to making sure all listings are correct. Alter…

Except Wikipedia doesn't work "very well". It works OK for most subjects, but there are some areas and points of view that are no-go areas because of the prevailing values of the major editors, and even turf wars. Mentioned not to long ago here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7700546