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by avianlyric 1706 days ago
I suspect they want to review and check every inch of OSM in an area before they import it.

Just incase someone has hidden something extremely offensive within the dataset, and deliberately mutilated the maps to create funny images etc

Google had a few very public cases of people using their open contribution process to embed images of Android, penises and hate symbols into their maps. All this created a huge about of negative PR, and eventually resulted in the contributions system being shutdown.
3 comments
mtmail 1706 days ago
> I suspect they want to review and check every inch of OSM in an area before they import it.

Facebook does the same with OpenStreetMap data. With a combination of automated tools and team of manual reviewers they were months behind with updates to allow error detection.

"Some of these contributions may have intentional and unintentional edits that are incompatible with our use cases. Our mapping teams work to scrub these contributions for consistency and quality. In the course of this work, we also build additional tools and technologies on top of OSM to increase mapping speed, and more importantly, drive a higher level of detail, quality and accuracy on the map." https://daylightmap.org/

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cjensen 1705 days ago
Neither Apple nor Google check to ensure that roads actually exist. Both have imported USGS maps that include non-public roads which are gated shut to the public.

Example: 37.475,-121.753

Both Google Maps and Apple Maps will cheerfully give you directions to this location which is less than 15 miles from their respective headquarters. You can't get there.

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littlestymaar 1706 days ago
Maybe that's the reason. It sounds a bit extreme but given the control culture of the company that would make sense.

> All this created a huge about of negative PR

Probably not that huge though, given I've never heard of it before :).

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avianlyric 1705 days ago
It all happened a while ago. Google shut down the Map Maker program four years ago.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/google-temporarily-s...

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simonh 1705 days ago
I had, so given the sample we can confidently say 50% of people had heard of it.

Oh and I suppose OP, so 66%.

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