If you’ve seen previous posts I have published here on Connect, you will know that one of my favourite topics are the categories available on Google Maps to indicate the main activity of places on Maps, the so-called Points of Interest (POI). I even have an overview post where you can keep track of the new categories that are being added from time to time (this is an excellent moment to click that link - it will open in a new tab - and bookmark that page, should you not have done that before 
).
Especially the consistency in the naming of those categories (and often, unfortunately, the lack thereof) is a topic I like to ponder upon. You will then understand that I was thrilled that the Maps team seems to be making quite a decent effort to increase the naming consistency by making often small and subtle changes/corrections to category names. An excellent example is Bicycle wholesale which has been renamed to Bicycle wholesaler, so with an ‘r’ at the end - just like the other 66 categories that can be found for wholesalers. Other examples include Interior door, which is now changed into Interior door shop and Audio visual equipment rental service which has become Audiovisual equipment rental service (without a space between audio and visual). Well done Google Maps team!
But what the **** (insert your favourite 4-letter word) were they thinking about when adding the new category Auto glass repair service? Sure enough, there are plenty of businesses that provide such services (like the one in the Maps screenshot on top of this post), but ALL of those are already categorized as Auto glass shop, a very specific category which has been around forever (well, at least since mid 2018, when I started monitoring categories)! Honestly, I fail to even grasp what the difference between those two could be. OK, the “old” one does not specifically have the word “repair”, suggesting it could refer to a business selling car windows and not repairing them, but do such businesses exist anywhere in the world? (If you, dear reader, know of their existence, do let me know in the comments). Would the business model then be: first you go to the Auto glass shop to buy a window and then you take that to anohter business where it is placed in your car? Sounds weird to me - especially if you take into account that the international English category term for Auto glass shop is… Windshield Repair Service (with all words capitalized, as is frequently, but not always, the case in the international English term - another type of inconsistency).
The availability of 2 categories for seemingly the same type of business is no doubt going to lead to the 2 being mixed up all the time, also because the translation of Auto glass shop in some other languages does already contain a reference to ‘repair’ (e.g. Autoruitreparatie in Dutch and Service de réparation de pare-brise in French). So, dear Google Maps team, please enlighten us about the difference between the 2 or merge them.
. I wish they would.