I assume many of you, are proud of their local guide achievement and love to see reviews they left with many views (and likes) and their photos features on visited locations.
We love our star photos - those attracting many views. Typically on popular locations attracting many map searches and visits.
It typically takes a great photo and some luck to get a top featured one that will remain for long on those popular locations, as many other photos are uploaded daily and offer google’s algorithm an optionally better alternative to attract audience.
Those that last for months and years eventually becoming our star photos.
I had the sheer pain of discovering yesterday that a local “guide” took my most viewed photos, downloaded them and uploaded as is to the same sites.
Simply an ugly tactics to boost views.
I guess whatever originally appealed to Google’s algorithm still applies, as some of those copied and uploaded photos are now featured instead of my original photos.
I know the purpose of all our sharing is not just gaining points and views but serve fellow map users.
Still, I do take pride pride of my photo achievement and this user’s behaviour really ruined my day.
[Edited]
I cannot share this user profile as it seems against posting policy.
So my top 6 star views photos re-uploaded by this user - probably took him 5 minutes to ruin my experience of local guide over last year.
Sadly, it seems google cannot detect such behaviour even when the photos are directly copied from maps.
I used the policy reporting tool for these photos and reported the profile as well.
The user may these photos removed and local guide banned but sadly, I suspect new profiles can be easily created with the same behaviour continued.
I doubt I’ll ever get my original photos featured again (if any moderator think differently please let me know).
I can’t tell you what I wish this user for the new year (but it is NOT season’s greeting and well beyond getting his profile shut down).
Not sure if anything like this happened to you - but I guess you can understand my frustration by this ugly behaviour and setback on star photos.
Comments welcome from all you good decent and honest local guides.
(and Season’s Greetings to you!)
Sam
Once a shop thought that my cover photo was free for them to download and re-upload to Facebook and Google maps. I contacted the shop, and they were super apologetic. But I learned that the copyright team is working very efficiently and quickly when you report a copyright issue on Google Maps. If you keep the original somewhere (I store them all in Google Photos), then the size and resolution are very good evidence.
Did you use the copyright infringement tool on Google Maps?
I’m wondering why your cover photos got deleted. This should not happen. Did you remove them?
When reporting such issues we need to be very precise, so the copyright team does NOT by accident delete your original photos.
Keep in mind the views and points are motivational gimmicks only. It is not the end of the world. Knowing that we help a lot of people is much more valuable. But I do understand certainly your frustration.
We will look into what you are reporting and take the necessary actions. However, please keep in mind that we won’t be able to share any part of our investigation.
Please note that I removed the profile image and link of the person you are reporting as we strive to protect yours and other Local Guides’ privacy and safety.
Finally I would like to ask you to edit the heading of your post, because it has inappropriate words in it. One of the five core values of Connect is being thoughtful and considerate of our words and actions. We would like to encourage you to keep a respectful tone when communicating on Connect.
Thanks for quickly responding (as usual).
I did not know we’re not allow to share other profile links but @MashaPS quickly cleaned it out.
My original photos are still shared on maps and their views have not been deleted.
They are simply no longer the main featured photos as their EXACT COPY is now featured instead (under the shameless user profile).
Agreed, there are much more important things in life than photo views but as we do put effort and pride into our contributions, I hope this user will be stopped before repeating tactic on other top users/locations.
Good to know your photos are still visible on the place sheets.
There is a chance that your photos will re-take the cover photo position once the copies are removed.
Did you report the copyright violations and carefully specify which is the original = to keep and which one should be removed with direct Maps links to each photo?
That would be a good path forwards. I hope @MashaPS agrees. Do you?
Thanks for editing the heading.
If you keep the link to the “thief’s” profile you can check later if he/she gets suspended or removed completely.
Reporting the Copyright Violation, as suggested by @MortenCopenhagen is the best thing to do but, as I am sure that @MashaPS has already found the profile of the one who is using a screenshot of your photos.
In any case I can confirm that your photo still be the cover photo in all the locations I checked
@MortenCopenhagen@ErmesT
Thanks for following this story.
Yes, some of my photos returned to be featured (but some did not). Not sure if this was algorithmic or human work.
In the following case it is almost funny when the recent copied photo (top featured) and my original can be seen clearly on the location page:
Interesting how google’s selection algorithm really “likes” this one.
It was my main contender to become a “star photo” after 7 months of ~25k daily views (reaching 5.2m before this shenanigan).
I appreciate it’s all just statistics and fun.
Still, the cheeky user profile is still active and the copies photos were not removed from map locations.
I did report copyright breaking against each one and still hope Google will eventually deal with the user.
I personally hate seeing stolen or plagiarized photos (and reviews) in Google Maps, or here in Connect (as you can see below in my signature), and I do my best to report plagiarized content and educate Local Guides on copyright matters.
Unfortunately, with 150 millions Local Guides, a check by a human will take time, so do not expect to see a plagiarist blocked in one or two days. But I know that soon or later all the Local Guides reported by me are now Former Local Guides, and most of the stolen contributions are removed
