An act of vandalism has been carried out from Google’s IP addresses for maps of the OpenStreetMap
Unfortunately, even such a wonderful company as Google has some unpleasant partners for whom it is a shame. Last week, a scandalous story spread over the media with Kenyan startup Mocality, which exposed Google to unfair competition (namely, the Getting Kenyan Businesses Online division ). Since November 2011, updates to the Mocality database were downloaded from Google’s IP addresses in India every night, and then GKBO representatives phoned customers on the phones from this database, offering their (competing) product. Google apologized for “the people who are working on one of Google’s projects,” and the incident seems to have been exhausted. However, today the story has received an unexpected continuation.
From the same IP addresses that participated in the Kenyan incident, vandalism was carried out in the open cartographic service OpenStreetMap (competitor to Google Maps): in the London, New York and other cities, major roads were removed, the direction of traffic was changed on one-way roads and etc.
The most obvious case of vandalism occurred last Thursday, after which the user account kane123 attracted the attention of the OpenStreetMap community (OSM). A full analysis of the situation is not yet ready. According to preliminary data, over 102,000 cases of access to OSM from at least 17 different accounts have been made from this IP address over the past year.
It’s likely that some unscrupulous contractor is using these Google IPs because it’s difficult to allow similar inappropriate behavior on the part of Google employees.
From the same IP addresses that participated in the Kenyan incident, vandalism was carried out in the open cartographic service OpenStreetMap (competitor to Google Maps): in the London, New York and other cities, major roads were removed, the direction of traffic was changed on one-way roads and etc.
The most obvious case of vandalism occurred last Thursday, after which the user account kane123 attracted the attention of the OpenStreetMap community (OSM). A full analysis of the situation is not yet ready. According to preliminary data, over 102,000 cases of access to OSM from at least 17 different accounts have been made from this IP address over the past year.
It’s likely that some unscrupulous contractor is using these Google IPs because it’s difficult to allow similar inappropriate behavior on the part of Google employees.