Google's Niantic Labs Sorry Over Death Camps In Smartphone Game

New submitter LunaticTippy writes: For those unfamiliar with Ingress, the game has GPS coordinate portals that correspond to real world locations, players then use smartphones to battle for control of these portals. Many public locations with historical or artistic interest are submitted by players. It turns out some of the sites were located within concentration camps such as Dachau and Sachsenhausen. NBC reports: "In a statement to The Associated Press, Niantic Labs' founder John Hanke said the company has begun removing the offending sites from the game. He said 'we apologize that this has happened.'"

Comments

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[mythosaz]

Location submissions in Ingress have always required approval.

Similarly you could request locations be removed for a variety of reasons - generally because they were on private property, were out of reach to the general public, etc. Sadly, sour grapes and even more sour players were more often the cause. A portal at my place of business was removed ostensibly because the garden was for patient recovery and meditation. Site management never even knew the game existed, let alone that Ingress players were disrupting meditation in the garden. The real reason a portal at my place of business was removed was that the opposing team didn't like a cluster of portals that was in the lap of the opposition -- so they faked a complaint to get it removed.

Bitches gonna bitch.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[JWSmythe]

I have outstanding submissions anywhere from 6 months to a year right now. I just got one denied that was just over 6 months old.

Of course, they'll take graffiti on the side of a dumpster, but they won't take actual non-death-camp historic landmarks.

As I keep saying, their approval process is handled by a randomizer. No human can be as pathetic as their approve/deny decisions have been.

Hell, I tried to have a portal removed from my ex-wife's house. I went out to visit our daughter, and while I was trying to explain the game, I turned on the game and it was on the house. The picture was from a commercial property miles away. They refused to remove it.