Who is deleting photos from Google Maps

[NinCo]

I have added points of interest, 130 years old churches near Sofia city to the map, after they have been renovated. I have written an article about my contribution on my site Points of Interest, Go Local Online . It was also part of an international collaboration to support the Program "Putting our cities on the map and a Case Study Local Businesses on Google Maps 

I found today that my photos are missing on this location  St.Ilia Monastery and uploaded them again. Luckily I have not deleted my album from 2015.

I have previous experience with my photos removed from the location of a hairdresser. I left then reviews with photos and placed the location on the map. I was told a company who offered to verify the location managed the data and removed all my reviews ( I left at least three since I visit the hairdresser from a long time). The photos are still in my history, without the location. My question on Google My Business did not find any good answer.

Can I get notified when reviews and photos I added to Google Maps are being removed? Who is approving the requests about deleting photos and reviews? 

[Belcrei-LG-Pró]

Amiga.

Infelizmente as fotos são removidas e não nos notificam, é assim mesmo, mas é bom que coloque aqui para que alguém do Google veja isso e comece a organizar essa bagunça, já tive problemas parecidos em que fotos de outros, sem relação com o local, foram adicionadas de forma totalmente equivocada.

[NinCo]

Thank you @Belcrei-LG-Pró  Thanks for your fast reply. I appreciate you doing the best for the issue to get attention.

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[Pea · Accepted solution]

Hi Nina

I'm seeing six of your photos currently attached to the Monastery, were all six removed and you re-uploaded them, or just certain ones or different ones? Photos can be reported for many reasons such as relevance, quality, privacy, copyright and helpfulness - that's to say does the photo help the map user understand what the place is about.

What I'm about to say is not going to be THE reason your photos were removed, but it may give an idea of what can happen.

There's one photo attached to the Monastery (not yours, from another user) which is just of the sky. I would definitely say that could be removed, after all it could be sky from anywhere in the world. Similarly you have a photo called 'view from the church' with a lot of sky and a tree. It might potentially be argued that this is irrelevant to the place itself - imagine a listing for McDonald's with a photo looking out of the window, is the view from McDonald's relevant? A couple of photos are a bit blurry, I've seen worse elsewhere but that might be a consideration. Privacy is a tricky question here, generally a photo taken in a public place is fine, but I wonder if showing the faces of people at a religious ceremony inside a church might be different?

Regarding your photos of the hairdresser, is the business itself still trading, do they still have a Map listing? If a business closes then photos would stay in your history but say Unknown place. One of your hairdresser photos https://goo.gl/maps/35bdKza4ZCr is largely of a poster with little other context. Would this infringe the copyright of the poster photographer? You would need an Intellectual Property lawyer to answer that. If the poster was featured in the background of your photo I think it would be fine, but filling the frame may cause concern. If the hairdresser is still trading maybe they changed their decor and your poster photos no longer reflect what the business looks like so they were reported as unhelpful/irrelevant.

Like I said, these aren't answers, but ideas.

Google doesn't notify users when reviews or photos are removed. Their product, their rules.

[alexcio]

It will mostly happen because of poor quality or an image in the wrong place. 

Think about it yourself if you take an image. What would be if you would be the owner,

• Does it represent the product, service or just the place as it is?
• Could you understand what's happening on the image, or does
  it provide you with help?
• Does the image help you to distinguish where the place is to find?
• Do you recognize what's on the image even you haven't been in a location?

Google made it all so easy, they put up Google Maps, asked you to upload your images from places that match with locations near, on the map. They ask you if you want to upload but never tell you what's best practice. Then, after uploading the images and maybe even giving you the feeling you added value to the community, they delete things without any advice information... Information that would lead to an improvement of the content quality. 

It took me some time and after some time I found a technique that helped me to improve a lot. I started to get more objective, and I think like on every human, every object can get subjective again, it's more about practice and repeating the questions above on every image you will ever take to make sure you are not doing anything wrong.

If you look at the following images, you might be always able to find the place again if you will be nearby, as I give you enough hints to recognize the place again. 

Gewerbemuseum in Nuremberg (Nürnberg, Germany)

The post office at the main railway station in Nuremberg (Nürnberg)

A place to buy brezels in Nuremberg (Nürnberg)

[LucioV]

Nina, no one will let you know why.

This occur often on most viewed photos.

I suspect that on same placepages there is a LG war on photos, i have two examples of this.

1) Trump Tower war: https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/General-Discussion/190-000-views-only-today-someone-could-imag...

2) My most viewed image on maps has lost placepage info: https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/How-do-I/My-most-viewed-photo-on-maps-lost-position-info/m-p/2...

I think that no one really knows what's happening to these images.

[NinCo]

Thank you @Pea

Your reply was very insightful and helped me self-audit my photos. I found one useless sky and removed it. The privacy in church for a big event is no more an issue and even if I have my own concern, I'm starting to get used to media presence. You can see a number of journalists with professional devices on my blurry photo.I take note about quality of photos and completely agree with you. That's on my list to elaborate this year. I removed all the photos from the hairdresser and I'm with you about branded banners. I don't find the listing currently either and will ask what happened there. I still hope there could be a feature, notifying us when a photo is being removed, since information is priority for certain cases, even if quality is not very good. 

Wish you a Happy 2017!

[NinCo]

Thank you @alexcio,

This is a valid reply. I can always come back to your clear examples and think how to improve.When I started, years ago, devices were not that good for quality and I recently thought about uploading 30sec video from a public performance. Perspectives have changed, I take note. Thank you!

[NinCo]

Hi @LucioV,

That's a reason for Google to adopt a transparent feature about this process. I have reported an image one time, when a classroom was uploaded to a local restaurant, so even if the author of the photo receives my report, there would be no reason to argue. Thank you for answer.

[PierceD]

I will also add that, sometimes, if you delete your photos from "Photos," they get deleted from Google Maps. But not all the time. Because technology...