[talk-ph] Mass “import” of POIs from GMaps in the last few months: Should be we alarmed?

[Jherome Miguel]

In light of the three latest major incidents of mass additions of POIs
illegally copied from Google Maps (described as “undiscussed imports” by
Tim), I think we need to be alarmed with such activity, especially since
we’re still in the middle of a pandemic and travel outside home is hard.

The modus operandi of the users I’ve found so far is generally add or edit
1 POI or street per changeset,  sometimes involving mass deletion of
existing POIs mapped from local knowledge or survey and replacing them with
the infringing ones. Other characteristics of the users I can recall are:
- Accounts no more than a week or a month old
- Refusal to cooperate or communicate through PM or changeset comments

There are many reasons why these users engagement in this illegal activity,
but what I’ve been thinking is generally lockdown fatigue, copycat of
previous incidents, or an Internet challenge encouraging users to copy data *en
masse* from GMaps to OSM.
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