Fake Notifications Like This May Result in Privacy Issues

[neerajtheblogger]

Hi,  I recently received a notification Congratulating me, I thought it as a message from Google Maps, as I am an active contributor and a Local Guide member I opened it and it asked me to share my location and when I dig in deep it says PewDiePie is giving gifts, seems legit as he might have teamed or have any association or doing it as an advertisement for gaining popularity in India and when I visited the link it provided, redirecting me to other  site,  it was clearly a fake message. Please work on these type of notifications and messages sent.

If you need more info please feel free to contact me, I will surely help in resolving this issue. I have attached some screenshots please check them out for better understanding of the issue. 

Regards

Neeraj Kumar

[Shirley]

Thanks for raising this issue @neerajtheblogger. I know there have been other reports and the team has been notified of them as well. Good to know that you recognized it was spam right away!

I will tag a Google moderator here as well to inform them of this. @FelipePK can also help with following up with you if needed.

[StephenAbraham]

@Shirley Would be interesting to know how a 3rd party who may not know a person's account id is able to broadcast messages like this, I assume via location proximity and how Maps can be configured to ignore these? 

[LucioV]

Hi @neerajtheblogger as Google Maps Product Expert I have seen several reports on this kind of Location Sharing spam.

It seems people can share their location with anyone they have circled on G+. There is no option to stop this or to stop the emails, but the team is working high level to avoid in the future.