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Is abusing your Google Maps positioning fair business practice?

Sep 16, 2009
111
2
First Name
Mitchell
I love competition! It makes me, and hopefully my dealership, better as it keeps you on your toes to keep thinking outside the box and come up with unique and interesting ideas. We all use SEM and SEO to get the jump on our competition and I for one would never begrudge a dealership for bettering me. I will, however, try to one up them next time.

I also believe the expression All is fair in love and the car business is not true. I have always tried to do things on the up and up with fair competition without resorting to untruths. There is a dealer in our market that I feel is operating in a less than ethical way and I'm curious how everyone else feels. Is what they're doing part of the game or is it just over the line.

What they are doing is getting P.O. Boxes in our immediate area, (Our Area Of Responsibility as Acura puts it) and putting up false Google Map locations (Their Princeton location is smack in the middle of Princeton University). We've tried diplomatic ways to get them to stop to no avail. They had pulled it down for a few months but now they're back with force.

Is this fair business practice or over the line? If fair, then should I begin a war they can't win or, maintain my dignity and fight unfair with fair?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.:mad:
 
go to the google maps page and report a problem. Click on more info....then go to the maps page. In the window that is on the map with the dealer info click the more button. At the bottom up should see report a problem. Google hates spam so report it as spam because that is indeed what it is. Thats the fastest way to get that handled in my opinion. If nothing else email me and I will give you a phone number to google maps and you can call them and report it direct via phone. [email protected].
 
I have done it over 10 times. I've received the following answer numerous times with no change!

From: [email protected] Date: Sat, 03 Apr 2010 09:18:17 +0000

To: <[email protected]>

Subject: Google Maps Problem Report (ID: ECC9-8DAF-6073-2103)



Hi Mitchell,

Your Google Maps problem report has been reviewed, and you were right! We'll update the map soon and email you when you can see the change.




Their definition of soon is quite different from mine!
 
Google can put a 360 degree camera on an army of bugs, have them criss-cross the USA with the cameras rollin' and geo-locate every single frame back to any business address. Wow.

But...

They SUCK at customer service.
They SUCK at giving "those that care" the tools to get it right.

Google Maps fail the Web 2.0 test (just ask Alex).
 
Hi Mitchell,
To answer your question, it most certainly is WAY over the line and directly violates Google's quality guidelines (
http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528). I wouldn't suggest trying to do the same thing as I'm sure it will only be a matter of time before Google starts cracking down on those taking advantage.

As for why it hasn't been updated yet, unfortunately it often takes quite a few weeks, or more, for changes to take place in google maps. Here is the number for google customer service (650) 253-0000. But truth be told, I don't think they really have any live people that can help you. They handle everything through online submit processes.

I took the liberty of submitting a spam report on Davis Acura on your behalf as well.

If you have any other questions concerning this, I'd be happy to help out in any way I can.

Sherry Olig
DealerFire