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12/22/2024 06:08:22 pm

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Google Temporarily Suspends Map Maker; Map Making Tool Used To Create Huge Pranks On The Map

The search engine giant is undermining its crowd-sourced map making tool in order to implement a way to prevent bogus edits, some of which have proven rather shameful.

On behalf of Google Map Maker team, Pavithra Kanakarajan announced that the search engine giant has suspended Map Maker and it will be temporarily unavailable for editing starting Tuesday, May 12.

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The crowd-sourced map making tool lets users add things like local businesses and roads to Google Maps. A post on the Map Maker product forum stated that the service will remain unavailable until Google figured out ways to add more intelligent mechanism to avoid similar events.

Following a prank submission that showed an Android mascot urinating on the Apple logo, hidden among the streets of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, questions about Map Maker's review policies were raised. Google Inevitably took it down and also confirmed that it was a user-credit edit. Kanakarajan noted that the recent incident was not only troubling but also unfortunate, NDTV Gadgets noted.

As a result, Google suspended auto approval as well as user moderation across the globe.

However, turning off automated and user moderation caused a huge backlog of edits that need to be reviewed manually. Google has been scrutinizing the problem and made numerous changes in order to prevent these pranks but later realized that a clear-cut solution will take more time than just a few days, according to records on PC Mag.

Citing the current state of the system, the California-based internet giant concluded that it was unfair on their part to let any of their users continue spending time editing, Kanakarajan wrote. Google admitted that it is only fair to say that they do not have the capacity to review the edits at the rate it comes in, and thus they have to take a pause.

Although Google said the suspension will only be temporary, the Web giant did not give any idea of how long it will be before the service is available again.

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