Google shutters Map Maker after peeing Android prank
Google has shuttered its map maker feature after Google Map Maker was abused due to the company's inability to moderate the sheer volume of edits.
Following a slew of copycat cases sparked by a web user adding an image of the Android peeing on an Apple in March, the company closed the service.
Pavithra Kanakarajan of the Google Map Maker team, said: “As some of you know already, we have been experiencing escalated attacks to spam Google Maps over the past few months.
“The most recent incident was particularly troubling and unfortunate – a strong user in our community chose to go and create a large scale prank on the Map. As a consequence, we suspended auto-approval and user moderation across the globe, till we figured out ways to add more intelligent mechanisms to prevent such incidents.”
As a result of the move, the systems auto-approval system has been suspended and entries are to be manually edited – which will cause a sizable backlog.