Spammers to Vandalize Maps for Users as Google’s Mapmaker Shuts

Google is all set to terminate its mapmaking tool in 2017 thereby allowing spammers to incapacitate the maps for users.

Joy Hawkins, SEO specialist listed several side effects of this global shutdown and highlighted that termination of this tool in the coming year could commence more devious activities by spammers.

This cessation would provide immense liberty to spammers to make edits on the data, which will be offered to the users of Google maps through the ‘suggest an edit’ feature, Hawkins added.

Another side effects of this termination is that map users cannot chase down the spammers and see the edits that have been made to damage them or their companies.

Google is the sole platform that can watch the edits, and there is no assurance that appropriate actions will be taken as soon as possible.

Hawkins further added that this grave decision might be a huge trouble for the insurance organizations as they are the common target of spam edits. For an example, a spammer recently managed to change the phone number of insurance companies’ listings to the same number, which belonged to a major provider. When people looked for an insurance provider online, they were directed to place a call on a single number, reports the International Business Times.

Overall, Hawkins estimated that closing the Map Maker would just empower spammers to hide simply rather than crushing them for good.

Therefore, the important search engine imposes more translucent actions to regulate and control spam edits, more and more problems and unscrupulous actions would heap up to destroy the trustworthiness of Maps.

Google is about to launch the Local Guides program as the replacement for the crowdsourced tool. TechCrunch reported at the time that the new initiative involves volunteers who are willing to contribute facts for Google Maps and Google business listings in exchange for points, rewards and other perks.