How to detect and report your photo got stolen

I also want to congratulate you to @supersupergirl his photos are gone, maybe a few other guides (hint) reported him as well.

Sorry for the late reply, it seems he was smart to block us all.

@MortenCopenhagen @TerryPG

[there is a setting on mobile where you can block specific users]

I opened the link in [incognito mode] and the photos and review are there.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/3nAYsG7xgSU8EAbx8

this is how I can hide my photos from public by turning this off.

by turning this off, i can no longer see his latest photos but instead, I need to keep scrolling his reviews to see the latest or go back to check unless i have the link.

unfortunately not using INCOGNITO MODE on browser.

Hi @supersupergirl

I’m sorry but the restricted profile setting do not allow us to hide only photos. His reviews are public with no media. So this can not explain what we see.

He has no options to block me as I’m not following him. I believe the option is to remove followers only

But the fact that his stolen 360 images become visible again in incognito is a huge surprise to me. I doubt this is a glitz and I can not image this to be an intended feature. We will need @DeniGu to take a look at this.

Please know that it is very unlikely that many people will ever see this. But it raises doubts in whether the stolen photos were actually taken down. They can be deleted as I expected.

Cheers

Morten

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@supersupergirl

I see your image he retouched when opening https://maps.app.goo.gl/3nAYsG7xgSU8EAbx8

On mobile using Incognito and staying on the browser.

I can not share a screenshot as this is not possible in incognito.

Cheers

Morten

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@MortenCopenhagen I was able to take a screenshot in Incognito, let me know if it’s needed.

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Thank you @MortenCopenhagen and google maps once again for helping out.

As you said it will be sorted out in due course.

I am sure he won’t do it again after this :slightly_smiling_face:

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I see his local guide logo has gone so I think he has been removed from the program.

Hopefully those photos will be removed in due course.

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Thanks, @TerryPG

Let us wait until we hear from @DeniGu

Cheers

Morten

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Hi @supersupergirl ,

You’re correct; the user has already been removed from the Local Guides program, and the team is looking into their contributions.

Thank you so much for your help, @MortenCopenhagen and @TerryPG !

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Good morning on a bank holiday, @DeniGu

I hope you noticed that @supersupergirl found that taken-down photos can be seen in incognito mode.

Cheers

Morten

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Hi @MortenCopenhagen ,

Happy Good Friday to you, too, if you’re celebrating (our Easter holidays are at the beginning of May this year; long story :laughing: ).

Yes, I saw the comment about the photos being visible in incognito. I checked this again this morning and I can no longer see any photos in the Photos tab in incognito. There are images that appear under the reviews in the Reviews tab, but they don’t load when clicked on. Taking down contributions may take time.

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To @MortenCopenhagen @supersupergirl and @DeniGu This is even more prevalent than we thought.I’m out shopping and I stop for a coffee.,going thru Explore and see a photo taken from one of my videos .posted to the same donut store as I did 2 weeks ago. I will send details and report when I get home.

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Thanks @TerryPG

The good thing is that Google reacts quickly to such copyright claims.

That team seems well staffed :wink:

Cheers

Morten

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I hope you are right @MortenCopenhagen It is reported. Here are both views of photo he stole from me and my video. Note the exact same grain marks on the table and the exact same froth on the beverage. looks like he added his thru Explore. Of course his profile is private so I cannot see what he is doing.

here is a link to the business

@TerryPG i know what you mean, they are really smart these days to go private so you can’t see hence the reason I tried the incognito mode.

hopefully i didnt cause another problem in the sense the thief creates another new google account and does the same thing.

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@MortenCopenhagen and @supersupergirl , Morten, you were right after a couple of emails back and forth, the villains’ photo was removed.

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Here is an update.

In April 2024 I noticed that the thief’s copy of my star photos at Kokkeriet was still online. So I decided to make a formal complaint.

The initial questions have been changed a bit. They now ask if the image was generated by AI, and they added this new dead end: They ask “Is the image of you?” This is not “Did you take the photo?” but “Are you in the photo?”. So you need to answer “No” to get the the legal complaints form.

Here is the explanation that I entered:

My most viewed photo on Google Maps is of this restaurant https://maps.app.goo.gl/xVN28CAbDvgV7rQu5
The user named Mr. Pringle https://www.google.com/maps/contrib/116809794359155316560/ stole a copy of my photo by making a screenshot and he uploaded it to the same business.
I explained the whole thing in this post: https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/General-Discussion/How-to-detect-and-report-your-photo-got-stolen/m-p/3658538

As you can see he uploaded it on Oct 2022. I believe the photo views accredited to the stolen copy should be transferred to my image found here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/fmwxQ7kdpbARzf2n6
It was taken in October 2020. It has 30.5 million views. TAKE CARE you don’t delete my photo with the many views!

You may want to check if more photos posted by Mr. Pringle could be stolen.

In the next field I wrote
The higher resolution version is here: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOrH9LxkeQFBTsaHWcnGiDsX7kEraozXnoPVeNA-DSWebFuRK5o2Sv1DwaxNhaXXw/photo/AF1QipNhUrD5jav403O-7aR0eVKwwTWfpTuDAaZS35A5?key=TVpaQ3o2alI1Y05oSVl5QXMzSy0yMjhocFRXUjFR

Please make sure the image is in a public album, so the operators can see it.

After 10 minutes I revived this:

Hello,

Thanks for reaching out to us.

We have received your request.

We receive many such requests each day; your message is in our queue, and we’ll get to it as quickly as our workload permits. Due to the large volume of requests that we receive, we will only be able to provide you with a response if we determine your request may be a valid and actionable legal complaint, and we may respond with questions or requests for clarification. For more information on Google’s Terms of Service, please visit http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS

Regards,

The Google Team

Update on April 15th:
I reported this Friday and today is the following Monday. So they reacted quite quickly.

Today I got this message:

Hello,

Thanks for reaching out to us.

In response to your copyright removal request and in accordance with applicable copyright laws in the relevant jurisdiction, we’ll remove these URLs from our search results globally:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kokkeriet/@55.6875199,12.5850195,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1sAF1QipO1dwwMQFZk2EOkFBhqIzFDRMyGO8w7pesUa30s!2e10!3e12!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipO1dwwMQFZk2EOkFBhqIzFDRMyGO8w7pesUa30s%3Dw203-h143-k-no!7i1031!8i729!4m9!3m8!1s0x4652531ebfb25b51:0x64718fb41f0bd0eb!8m2!3d55.687521!4d12.5850244!10e5!14m1!1BCgIgAQ!16s%2Fm%2F0y68qj5?hl=en&entry=tts

And this is what it looks like now under the pin:

So the stolen copy was surely taken down.

BUT

My original photo is still not showing under the “By you” tab.

And it is not featured under the pin as the stolen copy was.

I was not compensated for the lost views (I kind of expected that).

I will share the outcome here.

Cheers
Morten

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Yes @MortenCopenhagen I got the exact same message recently when I complained about the stolen photo from me. The whole process took about a week with some emails going back and forth. please keep us apprised.

Edited because it looks like the photo from Mt. Kilimanjaro was also borrowed.

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That’s great news @MortenCopenhagen . I do see either he or Google removed the other 6 suspicious photos that he posted from around the world.