How Do I Submit a Bug Report for Bad Maps?
I am in awe of the technology behind today’s mapping applications like Google Maps, Google Earth, and Live Search Maps. At the same time, however, these services painfully echo incorrect coordinates and I feel like I have no way to “correct” the problem.
Here is how Live Search Maps shows my address:
And here is Google Maps showing the same address:
Both Wrong
The problem is, both are equally wrong. In fact, as long as I have lived at this house, every single mapping service incorrectly shows my house 1 block away from where it actually is.
The data is also stale, at least 3 1/2 years old, if not older. We need drone planes flying 24×7, constantly updating the images. (although I’m not sure who is going to pay for that)
Bad Seed Data
From what I see, some database — somewhere — has incorrect coordinates for my street address. This seed data is then exported, shared, sold, and resold to all of the mapping companies, that dutifully regurgitate the bogus information. (Sounds an awful lot like news/blogs/etc…)
Let Me Fix It!
It would be great if these services had a way for me to send in “bug reports”, or at least offer some kind of community-based updating system where people could submit data fixes.
- Who is the owner of the flawed “seed” data?
- Is there a way for me to contact these people and submit a correction?
- How long will that take to bubble up through the system, so people finally get accurate directions to my house?
Navteq owns the data and you can report bad information at http://mapreporter.navteq.com/dur-web-external/secured/submitDur.do?userType=CONSUMER&language=en . I was able to get a typo corrected this way. Interestingly enough, different portions of google’s systems update at different rates, so the main maps page took a long time to see the change, but the maps served through developer apis were updated within a few days.
Scott Davis (of Groovy and NFJS fame) is a major map guy. He could probably help out.
Instead of bug reporting, I’m much more interested in the potential for advertising and general creativity. In researching for this comment, I found this site:
Google Sight Seeing Check out the Categories…
Really cool! (They have forums which probably have map geeks as well).
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