Google Maps slowly evolved to be the major source of information for any local or remote businesses used by millions of people around the globe like the WWW has emerged in last 3 decades. We have seen many spoofed internet sites for various businesses to cheat people and now we have many secure methodologies & controls in place in internet, browsers, ISPs to let common people don’t fall prey in wrong hands. Likewise, now we have many places are added to Google Maps with false information or dummy information which is making the Google Maps & places not so trustworthy in some scenarios. I have recently seen many places being verified by Owner also are either duplicates to get more visibility, attention and showing up in more places with fake reviews to attract more customers. These practices, if not stopped soon, Google Maps will become a place complete incorrect data. We need more controls in the following scenarios.
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Add a new place ( With & without photos)
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More stringent review/validation mechanism by local guides for new places added.
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Duplicate suggestion (While adding a place).
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Restrict members with many incorrect places added in the past.
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Cleanup Crusade (With faster & moderate access to cleanup places)
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Report mechanism to place creator and time limit based auto deletion, if not challenged with more verifiable information of the respective place added.
Along with the above, following would be nice to have to make it a better place.
- Controls to clean up photos with wrong location, content, personal identification information.
This is not a local problem, but more of global problem. We need to have the controls globally and form a crusade locally and need to solve it locality by locality and continue doing this over time. Please add your experiences, any further suggestions, any Google Maps Admin/moderator contacts to help this mission, or if there is any group or teams already formed and if there is a way to join the team.