False “Road Closed” Reports on Google Maps—Request for Stricter Verification (Surathkal, Mangaluru)

[Rahul_Madhyastha]

Hello fellow Local Guides @ShailendraOjha and @moderators @MoniDi @ErmesT

I hope you’re doing well. I’m writing to spotlight a recurring issue affecting navigation integrity, particularly around Surathkal on the outskirts of Mangaluru.

The Issue:
Some delivery partners are marking roads as “closed” in Google Maps—even when those roads are fully passable—likely in attempts to manipulate routes for personal gain. These false closure reports persist on the map, negatively impacting commuters, local businesses, and delivery logistics.

Ref: Sample location

Why This Matters:

• Users relying on navigation may be forced onto longer routes unnecessarily.
• Actual road closures may be downgraded in importance due to overreporting.
• The trust and reliability of Google Maps as a navigation tool are undermined.

Suggested Improvement:
To curb abuse of the “road closed” feature, I propose requiring users who report a road closure to upload a clear photo of the site with GPS location enabled. This additional verification step could deter false submissions and preserve accuracy.

Summary Request:

• Introduce a mandatory proof requirement for road closure reports (e.g., photo + GPS).
• Prioritize actionable verification to reduce spurious, unverified reports.

Thank you for your attention. I’m hoping we can work together to improve map accuracy and trust for everyone.

Best regards,
Rahul N Madhyastha, Mangaluru

[MortenCopenhagen]

I believe this should reach the attention of the relevant team, @MoniDi

[Rahul_Madhyastha]

Hi @MortenCopenhagen , yes, Ref : Widespread False Road Closures on NH66 in Dakshina Kannada – Misleading Navigation and Delivery Routing - #7 by ErmesT, one of the moderator has mentioned “In fact this seems to be a massive attack”. Its true. Scammers are working tirelessly to mislead google maps.

[MoniDi]

Hello @Rahul_Madhyastha,

Thank you for your suggestion and update. If you find any examples with fake road closures, please do not hesitate to share them with us.

[Rahul_Madhyastha]

@Rahul_Madhyastha

Sample location

Hi @MoniDi , here is a case, where more than 10 roads (fully/partially) marked as closed.

13°01'22.7"N 74°47'33.5"E

[ShailendraOjha]

@Rahul_Madhyastha I have an idea, if this road is important then you should talk to the CEO of Municipal corporation who happens to be an IAS officer and suggest him to send an official mail to google map support team that this road is important and this road is shown closed by unauthorized persons in the map but it is available for local access.
Cc.
@NareshDarji bhai
Look this issue

[ErmesT]

Thanks for your tag, @Rahul_Madhyastha , about an issue of which we discussed a few weeks ago.
I fully understand your suggestion about improving the reliability of the reports.
Actually we can report a road closure in two ways:

• Through the edit a road command
  

  

• during the navigation
  

  
  
  The second one is the most efficient, because the GPS position is captured at the moment of the report, while for the first one you may need a “massive” series of reports.
  Let me add that your suggestion is coming from an HONEST Local Guide, but try for a second to think like a scammer. Forcing the users to add additional information through Geo-located photos, even if I fully understand the meaning of your proposal, can be dangerous and an unwanted way to open the door to more malicious edits.
  In fact GPS position and date/time of a photo are attributes that can be easily changed, and if Google gives more trust to that kind of additions, I can imagine a potential increase of malicious edits.
  But of course monitoring the traffic in a road through the GPS position of the users can for sure help to deny a not appropriate or malicious edit, or to accept a right one. IMHO this is the kind of dynamic feedback that Google should use also for other features related to Road Edits

[Rahul_Madhyastha]

HI @ShailendraOjha
Do you really think this would work? Honestly, I don’t think so. And are we sure the CEO would just send a mail that easily? Think about how long that might take—or how many irrelevant questions I’d have to answer just to get that far. There’s also the unfortunate reality that in some cases, “fees” (or bribes) might come into play. Frankly, I don’t believe this method is reliable or practical.

[ShailendraOjha]

This is just an idea because the Google Maps team only accepts authorized papers. Once the Google team sees that it is government authorized, they will feel that it is correct. Then they will take some concrete steps.
Thanks

[Rahul_Madhyastha]

@ErmesT

The second one is the most efficient, because the GPS position is captured at the moment of the report, while for the first one you may need a “massive” series of reports.
Let me add that your suggestion is coming from an HONEST Local Guide, but try for a second to think like a scammer. Forcing the users to add additional information through Geo-located photos, even if I fully understand the meaning of your proposal, can be dangerous and an unwanted way to open the door to more malicious edits.
In fact GPS position and date/time of a photo are attributes that can be easily changed, and if Google gives more trust to that kind of additions, I can imagine a potential increase of malicious edits.
But of course monitoring the traffic in a road through the GPS position of the users can for sure help to deny a not appropriate or malicious edit, or to accept a right one. IMHO this is the kind of dynamic feedback that Google should use also for other features related to Road Edits

Thanks for your detailed input. I completely understand the concerns you’ve raised—but to be honest, I’m extremely frustrated with the fake road closure reports we’re seeing right now. These are causing real and significant problems for people on the ground.
For now, I sincerely request that all those roads currently marked as closed (due to these false reports) be reopened for public use.
Going forward, I strongly believe not all users should have the ability to directly mark a road as closed. Maybe users can still suggest changes, but those suggestions should go through some kind of verification—either by trusted contributors or a more robust oversight mechanism.
As you rightly mentioned in our earlier discussion, this appears to be a massive attack—over 200 reports in just 4 minutes. That kind of misuse clearly shows how vulnerable the current system is, and how it’s being exploited.
So once again, I sincerely urge the team to take immediate action:

1. Reopen all the roads affected by these fake closures
2. Consider better safeguards to prevent such abuse in the future
   Thanks for your attention to this.

Hi @ErmesT

Thanks for your detailed input. I completely understand the concerns you’ve raised—but to be honest, I’m extremely frustrated with the fake road closure reports we’re seeing right now. These are causing real and significant problems for people on the ground.
For now, I sincerely request that all those roads currently marked as closed (due to these false reports) be reopened for public use.
Going forward, I strongly believe not all users should have the ability to directly mark a road as closed. Maybe users can still suggest changes, but those suggestions should go through some kind of verification—either by trusted contributors or a more robust oversight mechanism.
As you rightly mentioned in our earlier discussion, this appears to be a massive attack—over 200 reports in just 4 minutes. That kind of misuse clearly shows how vulnerable the current system is, and how it’s being exploited.
So once again, I sincerely urge the team to take immediate action:

1. Reopen all the roads affected by these fake closures
2. Consider better safeguards to prevent such abuse in the future
   Thanks for your attention to this.

Rahul

[Rahul_Madhyastha]

Hi,

I see where you’re coming from—official government authorization would definitely give Google Maps a clear signal to take action. But the challenge is that getting such documents can be slow and complicated, and meanwhile, the fake reports keep causing problems.

Besides that, I still notice wrong spellings of places on Google Maps that we can’t even edit. It’s frustrating because it’s unclear whether the fault lies with Google Maps or the original data providers. This makes me question how effective the current system really is at keeping information accurate.

So while official papers help, we really need faster, more transparent, and user-friendly ways to manage and correct these issues on the platform itself.

Thanks,
Rahul

[ShailendraOjha]

I gave this idea after understanding the Indian scenario and Google’s working system and I will share one thing with you that just this week I and moderator @LaloPadilla were discussing about the list on Google Maps when I shared a screenshot on which there was an image with the emoji Header name. Two days later Lalo commented on the conversation thread that there should not be an emoji with the header name (POI), if Shailendra you can edit it then do it, I edited it immediately after that comment but it was not accepted, I edited it again after three days but it was still not accepted and now for the last two-three days I am seeing a lot of emojis with the Heder Name on the map which were not there earlier but still I am editing it.

Thanks.

Note :- Conversation thread link.

[ErmesT]

Well, @ShailendraOjha is correct, if roads are managed in the proper ways.
Public administrations have a preferential way to manage/update roads existence and status, if they want to do that. The problem is that most of the time they are unaware of the possibility or simply don’t want to invest a bit of resources in there.
A few years ago I was walking through the city of San Francisco (CA-USA) when I saw a message in Google Maps: Road temporary closed for the veterans parade. So I wanted to learn more about that feature.
Public administrations have the possibility to Partner with Google Maps through the https://contentpartners.maps.google.com
In that way they have a preferential Access to the information in Google Maps, as you can see from the link shared above and the help page: Content requirements: specifications for sharing data - Maps Content Partners Help
I used it once on behalf of a Local Administration in my country. It runs smoothly and the changes are updated very quickly

[Rahul_Madhyastha]

Hi @ErmesT @ShailendraOjha and fellow Local Guides,

Thank you all for your detailed insights and support throughout this discussion. I truly appreciate the time and thought everyone has put into this issue.

However, I’d like to honestly share that in India, obtaining official authorizations or letters from government bodies is extremely difficult in most cases—especially for individual citizens or volunteers like us. Bureaucracy, delays, and at times even informal “barriers” make it nearly impossible to get such documents, even for legitimate issues.

Given this reality, I feel quite helpless. I’ve tried reporting, flagging, escalating, sharing links, posting screenshots, engaging in forum discussions, and even proposing system-level suggestions—yet the problem of fake road closures continues to return again and again.

So, with a heavy heart, I think I’ll have to leave this issue here. I genuinely wanted to help improve Google Maps for everyone in my region, but unfortunately, I’ve reached a point where I don’t have any further tools or methods left to fix it.

Thank you once again for listening. I truly hope that in the future, Google Maps introduces stronger safeguards, more localized verification systems, or at least trusted contributor escalation options that empower people on the ground to help maintain accuracy without needing official paperwork.

Warm regards,
Rahul N Madhyastha
Local Guide Level 6
Mangaluru, India