Google Maps' enduring security holes put businesses at risk

boing
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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2014/07/07/google-maps-enduring-securit.html

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Going to read the article shortly, but I wanted to make note of this somewhat minor annoyance I’ve recently found on Gmaps. The U.S. Capitol building is labeled as the “Legendary home of the US Legislature”. This internet pedant says, “Umm, no!” First, it’s the “U.S.” Legislature, if you’re hardcore, but that oversight is somewhat understandable. Calling it “legendary” on the other hand, is a total Fail, unless the author of that change is referring to what some might call the legendary stupidity of the people who inhabit that building from day to day (and I don’t think that was the intent):

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Calling this a security hole is a bit of a stretch. I can say Barbara Oliver & Co Jewelry is closed pretty much anywhere on the internet, here included. I think it’s irresponsible to dilute the meaning of security hole like this.

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Agreed.

This did happen to me once…I want to a business because the Google Maps entry had hours listed indicating the business was open at the time when, in fact, it was closed.

I simply assumed that someone other than the owner of the business had put the hours in. Interesting to think a competitor might have done that on purpose.

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It’s called “legendary” because, in times long long ago, people there used to actually legislate.

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What they mean by “legendary home” is “It’s a fairy tale to think that the legislature is actually here and not in the top floor offices in some big bank’s skyscraper”.

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this explains why i have found a few places on google maps only to see they have “permanently closed” only to find that they are open and running just fine.

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The other “nice” thing about Google Maps is if you manage to figure out how to import your Placemarks from Google Earth, it’ll do it but without showing any of the text labels on the Placemarks in Google Maps unless you click on them the first.

Sometimes I have to wonder if the developers at Google every really use their own software very much.

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