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OpenStreetMap Reports Data Vandalism From Google-Owned IPs

Posted by timothy on from the yes-but-where-are-the-perps dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Following reports of misconduct by Google employees in Kenya and India, It has been found that Google IP addresses have been responsible for deliberate vandalism of OpenStreetMap data. While it is unlikely that this was a deliberate or coordinated attack by Google HQ on the competition, multiple such reports does raise the question of whether or not Google has become too big to effectively enforce its 'Don't be evil' philosophy across its massive organization."

5 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Evil by Nerdfest · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There's really no money in defacing OpenStreetMaps. With the admitted contracting of an Anti-Google campaign by FaceBook at least, I wouldn't put this past their competition.

  2. Does an IP identify or not? by Stewie241 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So... just for clarification, does an IP identify somebody? or not?

    I'm fairly certain that when I visited the GooglePlex they had a publically accessible WIFI connection. Do those count as Google owned IPs?

  3. Re:this, and then that other thing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One of the blog post authors is Steve Coast from Microsoft Bing Maps. Plus, the OSMF is claiming this post is a personal communication and does not represent the position of their board. So, the whole thing is starting to sound very suspicious.

  4. Storm in a teacup by b0bby · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As others have pointed out, this seems to be a storm in a teacup. If it leads to more participation in OSM, however, it'll be a good thing. I recently installed the Navfree android app (free onboard maps GPS, there's an IOS version too), and noticed a number of small inaccuracies in my neighborhood. Correcting them was really pretty easy; the maps around me already seem pretty usable, and with a bit more tweaking will be as good as any of the commercial alternatives. When I had first looked at it a couple of years ago the maps around me were pretty dire, so they've come a long way. House numbering seems to be the big remaining issue for navigation system use.

  5. You, too, can have a Google IP address by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Sadly, I'm an anon, so nobody will read this, BUT:

    Google used to have a product called "Google Web Accelerator" which was, essentially, a Google proxy that operated similar to the idea behind Kindle Fire: Make the proxy crunch images and the like to make the browser work faster.

    While using it, I noticed that IP reporting sites would all show that I was coming from Google in Mountain View, CA. ... who's to say that a savvy vandal simply isn't using GWA?