Creepy stalking or error: Where does Google Maps think you are?
This week Google came under fire for a rather scary new feature discovered by Guardian Journalist Alex Hern. He searched his name on Google Maps and found a location where he regularly goes to play card games.
Apparently if you type “Alex Hern” into google maps you get the pub where I play netrunner. The brand is strong
— Alex Hern (@alexhern) May 20, 2015
Others soon jumped on the bandwagon and quickly, concerns such as invasion of privacy, surfaced. Some search results showed where users had been, while others were blatantly wrong, and racist.
#GoogleMaps Anyone searching for "nigger house" or "nigger king" in Washington area is directed to the White House http://t.co/TT7LlpBPJP
— Jackson (@BossHogg6) May 20, 2015
wtf just typed my name into Google Maps and it's come up with my old uni and a place I did a gig last month??! pic.twitter.com/luIwo0vXIv
— bridget (@bridgetminamore) May 20, 2015
A Google spokesperson told Yahoo Singapore, "Some inappropriate results are surfacing in Google Maps that should not be, and we apologise for any offense this may have caused. Our teams are working to fix this issue quickly."
Looking for answers, writer Henk van Ess explained how the search seems to work:
Type in a full email address. Google Maps goes berzerk here. It tries to consider everything that has this e-mail address in it. A research friend,@themaastrix, noticed Google Maps is even extracting email addresses from metadata in photo’s he made. Others report that they left their address in a PDF.
Type in a name of a living person and Google Maps will try to match your name to a database based on data of a local Chambers of Commerce or a similar source. This handy feature only works if the person is registered as part of a company, organisation, university or foundation.
Some very unusual results turned up when people used Twitter handles to search:
.@thejaymo @Asher_Wolf Apparently, Google thinks I’m a charming little “erotic massage” parlor in Schleswig-Holstein. pic.twitter.com/YsS2mz2zDg
— William Ball (@ekstasis) May 18, 2015
Stll, some social media users managed to have some fun with it:
Quite enjoying the 'your name in google maps' game today (via @McKelvie) (worked with LTM on http://t.co/41djFcvKFz) pic.twitter.com/J48W05cFvo
— Alex Wybraniec (@invisiblea) May 20, 2015