[tvanantwerp]

I tried getting into this game early on. One option for players was to submit local landmarks as locations of note for the game. I would photograph and submit whatever landmarks nearby I could find. While waiting some weeks for them to be approved, I noticed one day that a bunch of Zipcar parking spots had suddenly become Ingress hotspots. I was so put off by the obvious advertising ploy that I stopped playing right then, and never touched it again.

[cromwellian]

AFAIK, Google are not selling advertising in ingress like that, so I think you're making bad assumptions. That doesn't leave out people spamming/gaming the system just like blackhat SEOs try to game Google search. I don't think the Ingress people really have the resources to curate all portal submissions.

It also could be to bootstrap the system, they just points of interest or business entries from Google Map's database. Otherwise, the game would be boring for most people with no portals nearby to play with.

(If you live in the suburbs, sometimes the nearest interesting thing is a Safeway or Quiznos)

[healsdata]

No, they made a deal with ZipCar to advertise in game via portals. And every portal submission is reviewed by hand. The quality of the review varies, but there's a 130 day delay right now.

[fixedd]

Screw those guys for trying to recoup some of the millions of dollars they've spent building the game, right?