How to Use Google Maps to bankrupt company

Rene Bertani (Rene Bertagna) - Serbian Crown restaurant owner near Washington. More precisely, the former owner. In April 2014, he had to close the business. In bankruptcy it accuses not anyone, and mapping service Google Maps. Businessman even filed a lawsuit against Google in federal court in Virginia.

The restaurant regularly worked 40 years, but in the last few years, the number of customers fell by 75%. According to the owner, someone edited recording information in Google Maps service and indicated that the institution does not work on weekends, although it is the weekend most visitors come here to enjoy French and Russian cuisine.



Unfortunately, Rene Bertani too late discovered the reason why people stopped coming. Worse, Google has refused to immediately correct the record on the page Serbian Crown. This became the basis for the lawsuit.

Probably Bertani chances of winning in court can be considered meager. Google's lawyers in the preliminary statement called his claim "ridiculous." But the fact is that the problem of spam on Google Maps has long been known. It is related to the fact that the service is running partly on crowdsourcing model, so that content can be edited by anyone.

For example, in the spring of this year, the network engineer Brian Sealy (Bryan Seely) repeatedly appealed to Google to improve ads moderating, and even opened a Twitter account with the publication examples a > but to no avail. Then resourceful engineer devised a way to draw attention to themselves .



He posted on Google Maps several fake ads, specify the address of the FBI and the US Secret Service, but their own phone numbers. When people call these numbers, Brian directed the call to the real number of special services - and included an audio recording. Writing a couple of calls for evidence, he went with them to the local branch of the Secret Service. Tied agents "spy": you put it on the floor face down, read to the right and was taken to the interrogation room, but in the end everything turned out well.

After this story, Google has responded quickly and removed some of the fake ads, although in fact the problem remains that we have seen in the unlucky owner of the restaurant.

Source: habrahabr.ru/post/229025/