Hi,
I’d like to report a major infringement to google maps rules and guidelines.
This Report is about ( Baron Empain Palace ) which is a major historical palace that dates back to 1911. It is a very popular and well known palace in Cairo with thousands of visitors each day and thousands of reviews on google maps page. The Palace now belongs to Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
I was searching for the palace on google maps when i found out that some user had claimed ownership to the historical palace’s page and map marker and was clearly granted ownership to the page !!!
Now this user changed the title of the marker
From ( Baron Empain Palace ) To (دكتور احمد سعيد استشاري جراحه التجميل) which is Arabic and translates to
Doctor Ahmed Saied Plastic Surgery Clinic.
He also changed the category of the page from Historical Landmark to Plastic Surgery Clinic.
Not only this, but he changed the phone number and the website to link to an instagram page to his clinic.
He also added this phrase to the description of the place دكتور احمد سعيد استشاري جراحه التجميل والوجه والفكين ونحت القوام
which translates to Dr ahmed saied plastic surgeon, face and jaw and body sculpting.
Long story short, this user abused the system and claimed a page to a historical palace to benefit from the exposure and popularity of the palace, and changed all the details to make this page about his clinic.
Google Maps Moderators should look into this and Fix the Page and Marker and put back the original information and the original title, and this person must not be granted control over the page ever again. And no one else must be granted control over historical and national landmarks.
How on Earth can someone claim ownership to a National Monument’s page and be granted control easily just like this!!! No one should be able to claim ownership to a national and historical landmarks page, this feature should not be accessible when it comes to historical places.
Next thing we’ll find someone changing the map marker of the Pyramids or Eiffel Tower to a fast food restaurant. !!!
I included screen shots to the page of the palace showing photos of the palace uploaded by visitors along with the false edits that this user made.
Google Moderators fix this please.
hello everyone,
i wanted to report the above problem,
@KatieMcBroom @TraciC @KlaudiyaG @Ivi_Ge
@MashaPS @DeniGu @AngieYC @InaS @TsekoV @LilyanaZ
@NABILazeez
please check this problem and report it to other google moderators that you know
Tagging one moderator is plenty.
Also you can not copy paste usernames when tagging.
Thanks for bringing up this very serious issue.
I think it’s relevant for you to seek help on this in theMaps support forum.
Cheers
Morten
@MortenCopenhagen
Thanks Morten for your reply,
oh i see, i went back and tagged them correctly 
I wanted to bring this serious problem to them so they can take action.
Maps features should not be abused in such manner.
Hello @MapsEnthusiast ,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I will escalate it to the appropriate team.
P.S.: Please avoid tagging people that are not mentioned in this post - Meet the Google Moderators. Please feel free to tag any of the Google Moderators mentioned in the article.
Thanks for your follow-up .
Yes it’s a major issue at Egypt these days and I mentioned several similar cases before , some has been solved and other still no action till now .
Local guides Egypt team already visited the palace at September 2020 and we have a lot of photos support your claim.
It seems that we must follow up every place by ourselves which is so difficult .
You can follow up this thread to know
https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/General-Discussion/Verified-private-home/td-p/1259122
what I mean unfortunately .
Last issue reported by me which is the most famous club in one of the largest cities at Egypt was hacked to a clothing store and not solved till now .
Google must put new rules for claiming these poi ( historical places ).
Please give me your idea how to solve these issues .
Best regards
Hi @TsekoV
Thanks for your time and help
The palace now is not claimed again, but we have 2 issues :
1- if you see the menu ?? It’s open instagram page of the facke owner.
2- the arabic name of the palace is changed to persian language as you see below I can’t found arabic language ?
The correct arabic name is
قصر البارون امبان
Thanks again for your support.
Best wishes
Thanks @TsekoV , and thanks google team
Thanks for responding quickly and correcting the problem.
It really makes a difference when you know that someone there is listening and trying to help.
However there are some things that weren’t corrected. There are still some links on the page that still point to the instagram profile of the person who was trying to steal the Baron palace’s page
First of all when you When you Open the (Map Marker/Page) of the Baron Palace,
Under the Overview tab when you scroll down a bit you can find ( Menu ) and beside it there’s a link to the false instagram of a Plastic surgery clinic. And There is also a Menu tab which displays false instagram link of a plastic surgery clinic. Those links were put by the person who tried to steal the page.
Google team forgot to remove those links when they were correcting the problem.
And those links need to be removed of course.
Secondly When i tried to edit the page to remove both links, i wasnt able to do so
and i found the fake links under (Products and services) section and under (Appointment) section,
As seen in the image below. Those links need to be removed.
Thirdly i found out that (Access this Business Profile/ Manage this Place) is still open for anyone,
I mean this feature is still available for anyone to abuse it. I could’ve gained access to the page if i wanted.
Anyone can steal the page again and repeat what happened again.
How can this feature still be accessible after someone tried to steal the page?!
This feature should not be accessible when it comes to national and historical places.
This is a National and Historical Place and the page should have NO owner.
And Finally , i would like to point out that
when google team were correcting the page, they removed the Arabic Title Field and added a Persian Language Field instead which is wrong of course and needs to be corrected. After all Egypt speaks Arabic Language Not persian. The Arabic and Persian languages share almost the same letters but they are totally different languages.
So the field needs to change to Arabic Language.
And The Right Arabic Translation to the (Baron Empain Palace ) should look like this :
قصر البارون إمبان
@TsekoV
i hope you send this to the appropriate google team just like you did before.
i’d appreciate your reply.
And thanks again for your help 
@NABILazeez
Mr Nabil , Thanks for responding
This is really a Big problem, it’s not the first time i report something like this.
But this is the Biggest Case i’ve ever seen, how can someone claim a place like this ?
I think that the solution to something like this is that google implement some strategy to stop their system being abused in such manner. The user who steals a page and break the rules of conduct must be banned from all google services. And the pages of the National and historical Places must be locked so that no one can claim it. You know Wikipedia pages that contain sensitive information and information about most of the presidents and some public figures for example, these pages are locked to prevent users from editing them.
Only a very few number of trusted users by wikipedia are allowed to make such edits. The same thing should be with google maps. Not all the places should be open for edits by any user, but only by trusted users and employees of google. And the Claim Feature should be locked in case of historical places and important national and public points of intrest.
Thanks for your concern, i appreciate your help and i hope we can cooperate more so that we can make maps more reliable.
Thanks again.
Hi @TsekoV
Just as i predicted @NABILazeez ,
THE BARON EMPAIN PALACE PAGE AND MAP MARKER WAS STOLEN AGAIN BY THE SAME USER. !!!
After google team corrected some of the false information that this user previously added to the Baron Page.
I went and checked the page again now (25 December 2020, 5 AM Egypt Local Time ) ,
only to find that the Baron Palace page has been stolen again by the same ( thief/user ) ,
This user removed all the data of the Palace AGAIN and Added all his info AGAIN
He changed the category AGAIN to plastic surgery clinic, and he changed the telephone number, the website, The Menu link , the Description, Appointmment, Products and Services links,
THIS USER CHANGED ALL THE INFO AGAIN ,
SOMETHING SERIOUS MUST BE DONE ABOUT THIS USER,
IS THE SYSTEM THIS VULNERABLE !!! HOW CAN THIS USER RECLAIM AND STEEL THE SAME HISTORICAL PLACE AGAIN !!!
I WARNED BEFORE THAT THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN AGAIN IF THE CLAIM FEATURE OF THE HISTORICAL PLACES WAS LEFT OPEN TO EVERY USER.
I Guess the google team that dealt with the matter before doesn’t understand the significance of this Historical Palace to the Egyptians. I guess they took matters lightly when in fact they should have banned this user from ever using google services again and should have closed the Claim feature to this Historical Palace.
I Uploaded Screenshots of the Page after it was stolen again by the same user. On 25 December 2020.
@TsekoV
Please , Escalate this Problem again and report it to the team again or report it to other higher teams if that’s what it’s going to take to solve this problem. This problem has been happening so much lately to many public places and this needs to be dealt with firmly.
@TsekoV ,
Please , Escalate this Problem again and report it to the team again or other higher teams if that’s what it’s going to take to solve this problem. This problem has been happening so much lately to many public places and this needs to be dealt with firmly.
Thanks @TsekoV
Hi @MapsEnthusiast ,
Thank you for tagging me again and letting us know.
I’ve escalated it again to the appropriate team.
Hi @TsekoV
Thanks again .
This is the situation at 13.00 cairo time .
I think it’s correct now and after 24 hours we will check again .
Best regards
Hello @TsekoV ,
First of all let me thank you for being so helpful.
I know you must be sick and tired of this subject, I am sick and tired of this too.
After the problem was corrected by the team last time i’ve been checking the Page of the Baron Palace every now and then to make sure everything is ok.
Today (6 January 2021, 6 AM Egypt Local Time) i found out that the Baron Palace Page has been stolen again for a Third Time by the same user who stole it before. The user added his info and tel.no. again and changed the location of the map marker and changed the description.
How can the System of a Huge Entity like Google be manipulated by some user like this?
Google Team was informed TWICE before and yet they haven’t taken any decisive action against this user/thief.
Why doesn’t this team or any other team lock historical places to prevent anyone from claiming ownership?
Can someone from google team tell us how can someone be granted control over a place like this ? Does he get granted control automatically by bots? or does a google employee accept a request of ownership and grants the user control?
These incidents and thefts are happening more often and so many local guides are beginning to lose hope and trust in the program. I am speaking on behalf of so many upset local guides who made so many significant contributions to maps and the community. So many guides here have been complaining of problems like these and have been providing suggestions to google maps team but no one is listening.
This situation is alienating to many honest local guides who are losing interest and faith in the program.
@TsekoV I Hope you Escalate the problem again to the team and ask them take a decisive action in this matter please. I attached the screenshots that i took today (6 January 2021)
Hi @MapsEnthusiast ,
Thank you for keeping a constant eye on this location. I’ve escalated it again.
@TsekoV
Thanks for being helpful as always,
i will keep checking every now and then and i will inform you if any thing comes up.
Thanks Again
Hi @TsekoV
i thought i might report this as well , Today (20th January 2021, 5:45 AM Egypt Local Time),
as i was checking the palace on maps i found out that some user has created a duplicate marker
of the Baron Empain Palace, and named the new marker Lord Krishna Temple .
There is NO Lord Krishna Temple here in Egypt. It is a Fake Marker/Page.
The user took the photos that were already uploaded to the Baron Palace page and Re-uploaded the photos to the new fake Marker that he made. Then the user added reviews from multiple fake accounts that he owns to make it look legit and to give the addition credibility.
All the reviews are from the same person as you will see in the screenshots.
I Reported this through the normal process in google maps and other local guides here have reported this as a fake marker and they also reported it through the normal process in maps. But the request of removal was Not approved. So i thought i should report it to you so you can escalate it to google maps team.
And i attached the screenshots i took. These are screen shots of the fake marker as well as screenshots of the fake reviews made by multiple fake accounts that belong to only one (user / spammer).
Hope you report it to the team.
Thanks again @TsekoV
Hi @MapsEnthusiast ,
Thank you for providing us with detailed information.
I will escalate this to the respective team.