Not too long ago, something weird happened to Google Maps in Norway: A lot of places were just names of ordinary people like "Ole Olsen" and "Anette Andersen",

Not too long ago, something weird happened to Google Maps in Norway: A lot of places were just names of ordinary people like "Ole Olsen" and "Anette Andersen", scattered around in residential areas with no store front. The simple explanation — not confirmed, but it's easy enough to deduce from the evidence — is that someone at Google imported a business directory of Norwegian businesses that also included sole proprietorships (enkeltpersonforetak). Here [1] is a screenshot of a random area of Oslo I zoomed into. In Norway, it's very common to establish a sole proprietorship if you are self-employed (which includes professionals like artists and authors) or have some kind of business income on the side. About 3.7% of Norway's population has a sole proprietorship. The problem, of course, is that pretty much all of these are just people's own homes, not stores or office spaces accessible to the public. So it's nonsensical to put them all on the map. Somebody screwed up. I've reported the issue, but of course they never replied, and the issue still exists. Now and then I'll report a business as erroneous, but there are around 216,000 of them. [1] https://i.imgur.com/pI42FoP.jpg https://i.imgur.com/pI42FoP.jpg