Hard to overstate how enshittified and botshitted Google Maps has become. Went looking for my local locksmith on Gmaps. Maps shows 20+ fake locksmith referral scam outlets and doesn't even register the real locksmith, despite it being fully visible in Street View.
Instead, a red pin on the shop identifies it as a fake locksmith scammer. The real locksmith - which has been there SINCE 1942 (!!) and is a verified merchant - doesn't even show up.
When we talk about managing disinformation, it often devolves into fights around "left vs right". Or "people being silenced". But I think the examples here and throughout the replies actually make this a much better use case for discussing responsibility.
I know that we all want to fight fake news, but we should probably start by trying to fight fake addresses and fake businesses. At least that would start to establish baseline societal expectations in a non-partisan way.
@pluralistic the sad thing with gmaps vs a community managed system like openstreetmaps is that gmaps is theoretically moderated, managed, "cleaned" by a dedicated, professional team. Sigh. A nearby street has had a typo on gmaps for years and they don't care.
@mbpaz@pluralistic But Google Maps does allow anyone to add random features like a rock, or a place in the middle of a field where they launched a drone from, name it whatever they want, and put it onto the map
@trantion@pluralistic Google Maps even allows bar owners to create a beach right in front of their bar (and within walking distance of the actual beach, already in maps with almost the same name).
Wonderful, isn't it? Snap your fingers and whoa, a new beach.
@Dnmrules@pluralistic the idea of a "sponsored" route hurts me. You should at least get rewarded somehow for it (assuming its existence is allowed), instead you end up spending more for the privilege of it.
@pluralistic I had a similar problem two years ago when I tried searching Google for a plumber. The place I called didn't seem to be a plumber, but when I hung up a plumber spontaneously called me back and tried to high pressure sell me on their services. They came out and then demanded a big payment for a "quote" and I told them to bugger off. No idea if they would have done the service or not even, but it seemed way too scammy.
@pmtriste@pluralistic Not just that, the actual map data is wrong in a couple of places in my town and I have no idea how to get it corrected (or if I should help Google improve their ultravaluable product). As Google Maps gets used by other services for routefinding, like Doordash, these issues become a problem even if one knows they exist.
Two intersections, instead of going in a particular direction, it'll instead route a right turn, then come back to the intersection from that direction and go the proper way.
In one of these cases, that way is well over an extra mile onto a trip that could be 600 feet; the other, the other, Google's suggested route involves a U-turn, and has been wrong in their data for at least a decade!
@rodneylives@pmtriste@pluralistic It's fast approaching the time when tech has to acknowledge that Bayesian statistics is not the tool to solve every problem. Sometimes, you actually have to solve the problem.
@pluralistic The Commonwealth of Virginia had this issue. Fly by night so-called "Israeli Locksmiths". These guys would do auto/residential lockouts with deadblows & prybars and charge hundreds for a grade 3 lockset. The state responded with training/ licensing requirements and made unlicensed possession of picks prima facie intent to commit burglary. Let me tell you, it is an odd thing to be the only one taking that class just to legally practice a hobby. It seemed effective otherwise.
@pluralistic recently I went to a Dr apt, I was kinda in a hurry so I said the address via voice and went with it.
I ended up at a farm barn outside of town. There is nothing obvious to indicate why it happened, no common street or town names. The Dr office notes it is a common occurrence.
@pluralistic@AnnaAnthro At the other end of spectrum, you have my street, which Google Maps is convinced it and the next street over are a single road. It’s been 20+ years of mixups with mail and deliveries, with the residents of both streets and the town hall repeatedly trying to get Google Maps to correct this mistake.
Somehow only Google Maps can’t figure this one out. All other services list both streets accurately. Of course, 90% of delivery people use Google Maps so… 😬
@gfkdsgn@bougiewonderland@pluralistic@AnnaAnthro Thanks for the heads up! The location wasn't noted on Openstreetmap (our provider of locations) so we just added it, should be on our map automagically updated soon. (you'll see an icon there, the red basket is for 'retail' in general)
Smallish town with only so many delivery folk. You'd think their working knowledge of the area would eventually override the one-block map error, so they'd know what street they were on. Hmm
Delivery folk never read notes attached to orders and/or just can't accept that their phone is wrong as we stand 100 feet away waving our arms at them.
The reluctance to accept reality vs the phone is itself interesting.
I have seen this with taxis (which never see the number on my huge apartment building, drive right past and up the street where their GPS tells them to, wrongly), and with delivery drivers (who often are directed to the back door, which I cannot open remotely for them, by their GPS).
@tomjennings@bougiewonderland@pluralistic@AnnaAnthro two main comments: the phone is usually more correct than asking a random random person or themselves, And they are explicitly being told to follow the phone. These companies are not rewarding creativity. One minor comment: you can send feedback and get the maps corrected. I have done this in past when Google showed a road going through my backyard to the front street. I was unable to do this for example, with delivery apps where the log was the major road comes near my property, but they ignored the 10 foot wall between it and my property. Most engineers do not think about building, proper feedback loops into their software data systems. I think it can be generally summarized as false food program programmers believe about data: the data is correct.
It took Google years and repeated submissions from me and surely many others in my city to stop using a bike trail that was closed for the construction of a train bridge. It still shows the wrong bits of streets here as one way.
@tomjennings@bougiewonderland@pluralistic@AnnaAnthro Navigating exclusively by driving doubles this effect. When you walk a lot you observe little details (because it's actually possible to do so) and so when you do use maps you take them as only vague guides to locations. There's always missing details on a map, even the best ones necessarily have to leave out details.
Delivery drivers have so little time to linger and learn. It's a real loss.
@clarablackink@tomjennings@bougiewonderland@pluralistic@AnnaAnthro I drove delivery back in the early 00's. No GPS, no smartphones. We had a laminated city map on a wall in the kitchen. You just learned where stuff is. Which roads go where, which ones connect. Where traffic is often heavy. This is more or less a lost skill. And Google Maps can eat dirt. It never failed to take the most asinine routes, favoring byzantine directions over direct routes if it deemed them, incorrectly, better.
@skaficianado@clarablackink@tomjennings@pluralistic@AnnaAnthro I remember the first time I went to the UK, they explained to us that cab drivers in London has to pass a test to show they knew the ins and outs of the whole city. That had really impressed me! I wonder if it’s still the same today…
Called out explicitly like that? That's great! A shared world held totally in the heads of those that have The Knowledge.
This is precisely what corporations hate. Openly. Fordism.
If you Google it you have to almost dig out the fact there its fundamental point is to extract knowledge from workers, as in remove so that they are not the repositories of their knowledge.
@pluralistic I just had similar fun finding a local plumber. Many fake addresses until Infound one where street view shows an actual plumbing company.
Weirdly the actually local one I found doesn't advertise online, has a broken website and mostly deals with bigger clients. But they came and fixed my kitchen sink anyway, and promise to send me an invoice for the quoted amount eventually.
@moz@pluralistic As a web developer, I have often found that home services businesses are too busy to bother with updated websites. I once worked with a top tier house painter who didn't want a website because he got jobs via referrals. Also, many companies see the Google search preview to be enough of a digital calling card.
@pluralistic yeah I looked for a laundromat near me once, the closest one Google Maps found was 4km away. Then the next day I’m out for a walk and find one myself not a kilometre from my apartment…
@pluralistic There's a wider, weird ecosystem of home-service contractors who have bad reputations or otherwise can't get visibility in online results who sign up with scammy referral services. Wound up getting our AC repaired during a heat wave last year by a guy who no one would ever have hired directly, for an exorbitant feed. Our local tile warehouse tried to the same thing with their referral service.
@pluralistic Someone I know is currently writing about this - the locksmiths are a huge, organized scam, and the operations sprawl through multiple countries and I don't know what else I'm allowed to say about it rn.
Alternatively, Google (and by extension, all tech companies) have been horribly evil companies from the beginning, but we were too gullible to notice. By the time we did realize that huge corporate monstrosities are as bad for society as criminal drug cartels, it was too late.
@eldubuu@unikitty@pluralistic I was searching my Gmail inbox for something yesterday, and happened upon 20 year old invites I sent to others, so that they could join Gmail themselves, the only way at the time.
@tehstu@eldubuu@unikitty@pluralistic I did that same thing last week. I gave my gmail address over the phone to somebody and they commented that they had never heard such a short Gmail address. So I went and looked, and it was June 2004 when some blogger gave me an invite.
I know the Biden admin is working to revive anti-trust and has their sites on Google, but the consolidation already completed has eroded the natural institutions that would have made recourse to the largely captured courts unnecessary.
@pluralistic Let's be clear: calling this wayfinder-cum-adverising service "maps" was the first lie.
A map has a funtional scale.
A map has a legend.
A map allows you to create your own route.
A map is also (usually) accurate and neutral at the time of publication.
Also, sadly, #OpenStreetMap's default search tool seems to search for names but not categories, so even though that feature is tagged as shop=locksmith, it doesn't show up if I search for "locksmith burbank" only for "lock burbank" because "lock" is in the name.
@pluralistic using Google Maps in Seattle it always tries to route people through tiny neighborhood roads versus just sticking to the main arterials to just save a minute.
Generally it makes it dangerous or wastes your time waiting for cross traffic to ease up.
It also directs people to drive through Pike Place when visiting, which is allowed, but also the worst thing to do if you’re trying to go to the market. It should take folks down a different street to the parking garages.
@pluralistic
Our house is on the corner of "N1 Some street" and "N2 Other street". First address is where the door is. Othet one is like "what am I doing here? There's nothing here".
Of course all taxis and deliveries get there and we have to stand there in the rain trying to convince the driver to go 20 feet forward, turn right, and then go 20 more feet to a door with a large sign with our address on it.
Pointing at it doesn't make them look. They're angry that we think we know where we live.
@pluralistic@bastardsheep And the excess level of effort for a regular consumer to report the location or business doesn’t exist is in part how their maps became so enshittified.
It’s too hard for someone that cares to clean up their local neighbourhood data, and they shouldn’t have/need to be putting in any amount of unpaid labour for that anyway.