Comment by civilian | Hacker News Reader

Comment by civilian | Hacker News Reader

I worked as a contractor in Kirkland on this project for about a year.

Just for context, the first image with the red and green dots--- each dot represents a 360-degree "street view" image. While consumers only get half-a-dozen a block, the operators got access to all of them. (Green are HD, red are normal def.) It was really useful for verifying that businesses had closed because the streetview dots also had the exact time that they were taken.

There was also deeplinking in Atlas to a specific dot and direction vector. So when I was submitting a change to a business, I could link to the exact sign that I saw to prove that "Mama's Teriyaki is on _that_ corner", which helped whoever QA'd my change.

It was a great first job out of college given that my degree wasn't very relevant to anything. (A lot of my coworkers in the same spot--- young, a degree that wasn't too useful, trying to find anything to do.) Out of the 400 contractors in that first Kirkland "class", I see tons of them around the Seattle tech industry now. It's been a surprisingly good network to have.

At the end of the day it was still data-entry / data-validation, and mind-numbingly boring.

This is actually very fascinating. About how many businesses a day would an average person versus a prolific or slow person manage to update? Did you mostly work off of business signs to determine information about businesses? What if no recent pictures had been taken?

We'd also use the internet and, reluctantly, call them. We would identify ourselves as google maps, calling for info about their business.

I don't quite remember the numbers, but it was something like 40 a day? The slower and new peeps would be around 25, and the fast people could do like 80 a day. But there weren't any productivity bonuses besides not being let go, so me and my buddies would do about 10% more than the average and then goof off on the internet or do homework for our python night class.

Can you use the Atlas tool to correct business and other E/POIs (establishment/points of interest), or is limited to roads and other base map data? How do they evaluate spam POIs (say, locksmiths, who are prolific on Maps) in comparison to other Maps RAP (Report a problems)? Do all the teams (Places Listing Editors, Map Maker Google Reviewers, Maps Editors, etc.) use the same Atlas tool, or do they all have different tools? I use MM (Map Maker) quite a bit, and I'm curious how Google's tools work in comparison. Thanks.

Yup, you can change those things in Atlas. The "GroundTruth:Local" team did our best to accurately have 6 points of data: name, address, phone, url, business category, and pinpoint on the map. Atlas also had history for POIs, so you could see history from other operators. We wouldn't just use streetview, we'd also search for websites and, if we had to, call the business itself.

The Local team used Atlas, as well as the GroundTruth road-placement team, and the QA teams. There were different map layers and controls you could bring up.

Business category was funny because it had the most subjectivity to it. There was also a team in Hyderabad (that wouldn't make phone calls), and I once got into a dispute about whether "Olive Garden" is an American restaurant or an italian restaurant. :D

Yup, so part of the Atlas history for a POI is seeing problems that people have submitted onto a listing. When I was doing this a few years ago we had a humongous backlog of user feedback, but I'm under the impression now that they're mostly up to date.

Spammers were a huge problem. For businesses that don't want to advertise their brick-and-motor (a locksmith comes to you, not you to a locksmith) the policy was that they'd get one POI at the center of the city or zipcode they operated in. You'd think that locksmiths are bad, but florists are worse. Florists! They sell flowers to people! Horrible spammers. They also like to make fraudulent listings--- so they'll make a listing for "Competitor's Flowers" but have the phone number go to their business "Evil Flowers LLC".

There seems to be a huge difference in the quality of teams that use Atlas. For example, I've submitted reports on thousands (ex-hobby of mine) of spam locksmith listings over the years via Maps RAP and MM Report this. The MM team would readily remove spam, whereas the Local team wouldn't, even though the POIs were clearly spammy (special characters in the name). I've also coordinated with other maps users, and it seems the consensus is is that Local team will protect claimed listings at all costs, even to the point of hiding addresses for spam SABs (service area businesses) when they should just be removed altogether. If a spam POI is in the middle of a lake, or has weird characters in the name to evade the spam filters, wouldn't that raise some alarm bells somewhere? Do they have any standards or guidelines for evaluating the spammiess of a POI? Local seems to be engaged in an aggressive turf war with other teams, like Map Maker to protect their listings. Many edits that I've made to benign POIs within MM have been denied by LEs, only to be later accepted and corrected by GRs. Can you comment on the differences in quality among the respective teams, and their methods for evaluating edits? And why are they so determined to keep SABs out of the MM listings, especially considering the many of the SABs are spam, and use virtual offices, PO boxes, and unrelated business addresses (McDonalds, etc.), and, at least in the US, have to be licensed for business (and the business license address itself is a matter of public record? The reason given was that they wanted to protect the privacy of the business owner, but businesses have virtually no privacy (and no one used MM to find businesses except to edit them). SABs used to be visible in MM, now they're not. The "new" Maps RAP is terrible at reporting issues beyond just the basics. Reporting spam with the Maps RAP is a chore and almost better suited to MM.

Regarding florists, they're bad, completely agree. I weeded out a few mega-spam networks a few years ago before I gave up and focused on locksmith spammers. Garage door suppliers, handymen, carpet cleaners, movers, escorts, and lawyers! Lawyers are pretty bad, especially the ambulance chasers/accident attorneys.

I totally agree, and yes please answer these questions, as I'd be interested to know the differences in quality among the respective teams, their methods for evaluating edits and how they perceive each other.

Right now you can use Google Maps on your phone to add a missing place. This place will be approved (usually within an hour) by an Anonymous account bearing the "G" logo. Now while the POI may not display unless you are actively searching for the place or it's specific category, it will still appear on the map. This makes it even easier to crowd the map with useless information. I am sure it's an insult to those who painstakingly edit the map in MM with accurate information, only to be denied be an LE who knows nothing, and then seeing the useless entries like people's houses and spam get added immediately. What is Google's reasoning behind this?

I can't really answer the question with any insider knowledge, but from experience working with the Map Maker product and Google reviewers (those are the ones with G), they use a contracting workforce for local that has little training and high turnover. The Google Reviewers on the Map Maker team usually have better training and retention, and have higher quality standards that they adhere to, but that may be my bias working with them (they are usually quicker to fix their mistakes, and they also QC the LE reviews, frequently (100%) overturning their reviews and approving your edit on MM if the LE denies your edit. It's very frustrating and almost bipolar.

It's all fairly easy to spam Google Maps from other avenues. I've seen bulk uploads of 100's of spam listings, the Google My Business product is also easily gamed, and the LEs don't appear to closely scrutinize locations in order to ensure that the business is where it's claimed to be, even though they have access to more detailed street view imagery and presumably can just Google it. Google in general, and LEs in particular, seem to have a policy of preserving all data, no matter how bad/spammy, and approving new POIs, even if the POI is of a questionable nature and isn't supported by the facts, which, again, points to a deficit in their training in being able to identify spam features for Maps. Once you know what spam is, it's fairly easy to identify, and the actual QC checks, primarily using government licensing databases and other resources, takes about 30 seconds or less to verify listings. The hard part, at least on my end, is removing it. Google loves to hang on to spam.

It's a bit disturbing that locksmiths, of all people, are exceptionally dishonest. Florists I can understand — their entire business depends on emotional manipulation.

(Though it makes me feel better about taking an angle grinder to my door when I lost my keys a few years ago.)

It isn't locksmiths, as a whole, who are dishonest, it's that there's an international organized crime ring that runs a majority of the locksmith ops in the US, Canada, UK, and other countries. They operate call centers here and abroad that route calls to contractors in the field, who are usually working (at least in the US) here illegally on tourist visas, and they charge several hundred dollars above market price to perform unlocks, and much more to sell and install counterfeit lock hardware, none of which their workforce is remotely qualified to actually carry out. Unless you know the locksmith, or know their shop, or can find a locksmith affiliated with ALOA, or use your insurance company's (example: AAA) list of approved locksmiths, it's wise to steer clear of any locksmith on Google affiliated products. Otherwise, you'll become a victim of their bait-and-switch schemes (which often run as "$15 unlock in 15 min." on Google AdWords). Same could be said for garage door suppliers, carpet cleaners, and handymen--they're all run by the same crime group, more or less, and have been honing their craft since the 1980's, when they got their start with the printed white and yellow pages before moving on to Google. I would start with Meni Agababayev of Run Local Locksmith, and David Peers of Dependable Locks, to find out more information.

(Incidentally, you made a wise choice.)

Similarly, local florists are great, but many of the florist ops on Google Maps are just resellers running out of a call center who tack on an extra fee for ordering the flowers for you.

This article has a good review of the map spammers and their motivations: https://sites.google.com/site/mapmakerpedia/maps-101/wiping-...

Basically any business that is aimed at homeowners, but tends to be located away from residential areas, has a big inventive to create false locations.

I wrote that! Thanks for posting that. Here's a good article from an ex-Maps spammer, detailing how he used exploits in the Maps UI to hijack listings: http://valleywag.gawker.com/how-a-hacker-intercepted-fbi-and... Although that particular loophole is closed, there are still many ways to get spam listings on Maps.

Regarding movers, the Senate wrote a report detailing the problems with the moving industry. Many of the spam listings are fronts for a few spammers like Aldo DiSorbo: http://searchengineland.com/us-senate-committee-asks-google-...

> I worked as a contractor in Kirkland on this project for about a year.

You survived the place hope goes to die? Congrats! It sounds like an unholy amalgam of data entry and a call center.

Civilian, you probably signed an agreement with Google to not disclose information about their internal operations, as you're doing here and below.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com