4 ms·
My best friend bought a house. She noticed within the first month that the name of the road she lived on was misspelled in Google Maps. Specifically, it's a sli
by da_chicken 4mo ago
My best friend bought a house. She noticed within the first month that the name of the road she lived on was misspelled in Google Maps. Specifically, it's a slightly unusual spelling of the road name. Like "Chickorie" vs "Chickory". It's particularly annoying because there's a road the next town over with the traditional spelling. It doesn't even share address numbers, but Google Maps still frequently misdirects people.
It's correct everywhere else. The road sign, the municipal tax parcel GIS, the post office, Apple Maps, MapQuest, OpenStreetMaps. All of them had the correct name, except Google Maps. So she reported it through Google Maps. And reported it. And reported it. Every few months she reports it again. She's asked friends to report it as well.
It's still wrong.
She bought her house in 2015.
- eitally 4mo agoMy anecdote is worth just as much as yours. I moved cross-country in early 2016 (for work at Google) and noticed when we closed on our house that the next street over was mis-pronounced by Google Maps. I reported it and it was fixed within a week.
- gnerd00 4mo agoyou moved there --to work at google; you reported it --while you worked at google. What is different hmmmm
- antonvs 4mo agoThe difference is the location of the house.
- brazzy 4mo agoIf they reported it via the normal Google Maps reporting function, it doesn't actually make a difference, does it?
- eitally 4mo agoNothing -- I reported it via the consumer Google Maps function. In fact, I've reported several Maps errors over the years and all have been addressed fairly promptly. This includes before I worked at Google, during my time there, and after leaving.
- hendnfjfk 4mo ago[dead]
- Ferret7446 4mo agoUsually street data comes from an official source. You probably should have reported the issue to the local government rather than Google. (Just because the name is correct on some government material doesn't mean it's correct everywhere.)
- annzabelle 4mo agoGoogle Maps put a town label near my parents' house that is a name that was on some old maps in the 1910s, but fell completely out of use before the current suburb was built in the 70s and 80s. I had never heard it once in my life until I was in my early 20s and met a transplant who had picked up the name from Google Maps. I attempted to report it as inaccurate (USGS has had it as being out of use for decades) multiple times over the years, but no reply.
- dmurray 4mo agoMost of the neighbourhood names in my large European city were like this on Google Maps. Either old names or hyperspecific landmark/street names that I had never heard being used as synecdoche for the area. This was definitely true 4-5 years ago. I looked now and it's mostly better at most levels of zoom.
- consp 4mo agoGoogle maps uses suggestive names (e.g. a park walkway given a name by the municipality) as official road names, and when it does that it marked it as a cycling path. Both are invalid and cycling on them is illegal. This has been going on for years.
- 21asdffdsa12 4mo agoIt redirects cars on foot/bikepaths near rivers, with the danger of sliding in.
- inigyou 4mo agoGoogle puts the "Warsaw-Berlin Urstromtal" (glacial valley?) right in the middle of the river near the Friedrichstraße train station. You can be browsing the area and suddenly, yep, there's a glacial valley there in the middle of the river. According to Google. This is a large-scale geographical feature that crosses most of Germany and Poland. But actually it's in the river next to Friedrichstraße station.
- aeturnum 4mo agoMy "oh google maps" story was that I was hanging out at a new cider bar in my neighborhood and asked the owner why I couldn't find it on google. They said they got a message that they'd been banned for listing boosting - which they said they didn't do any had no idea. So I reached out to an acquaintance who knew a lot of maps people. Some investigation later it was entirely unclear why the bar was banned - it was some conflict with overlapping systems deep in the map bowels - and the bar is visible again. It's just good luck that the owner happened to talk to me and I happened to know someone who looked into it!
- rcbdev 4mo agoThis kind of support should be mandated for any digital utilities company such as Google. The difference between small business success and insolvency was based on the shier luck of being graced with the presence of someone in contact with the priesthood of Google, where no real contact from the plebian citizenry is allowed. Exactly this kind of thing is why the EU feels the need to regulate the shit out of U.S. big tech.
- vovavili 4mo agoLegislating costly support for a free and accessible service is how that service stops being free and accessible.
- lurkerforawhile 4mo agothey have four trillion dollars buddy they'll be okay.
- vovavili 4mo agoThese are exactly the kind of companies that have enough data and analysis to avoid bleeding money.
- lurkerforawhile 4mo ago
- iamacyborg 4mo agoGoogle Maps have an address API some companies use when filling out addresses for shipments. Despite my building existing for over 10 years, putting in “flat number, building name” into that system will be rewritten to “house number, building name road” which is an address on a he other side of town (and London ain’t exactly small). I’ve had multiple orders go missing as a result.
- ralferoo 4mo agoThis is why we have postcodes. More concretely, a postcode is usually specific to between 7 and 30 dwellings, in the usual case it's about 15 houses. Contrary to common belief, they're not always on the same street, but in the vast majority of cases (like maybe 99%) house number + postcode is sufficient. Definitely flat number + building name/number + postcode should get your stuff there.
- iamacyborg 4mo agoYeah, the google maps address thing just overwrites my post code, and some senders in the US don’t appear to pay attention to that.
- inigyou 4mo agoFalsehoods programmers believe about addresses... The only universal address input is a freeform text box. Optionally with a country, which should also be a freeform text box because countries get created and destroyed and you won't remember to update it. City or district is probably okay - as a freeform text box - addresses without one can write (no district). But street addresses are different everywhere and must be freeform unless you're the government of that region.
- 21asdffdsa12 4mo agoThe trick is use the right keywords. "Dear Sir and Madam of google, im writing you to inform you, about a possible liability your software opens itself up to, by referencing emergency vehicles to the wrong road. Example: Regards"