[OSM-talk] OSM not acceptable for geocaching.com

[Till Harbaum / Lists]

Hi,

i have recently released a geocache which basically required you to look up a certain node
in the OSM database. The position of that node was then the place where the geocache was
hidden. Geocaching.com users can perhaps still read the original listing at:
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=80a9308b-6719-485d-a0dc-846798a8cac2 

Geocaching.com recently completely deleted that cache antry as they claim that it forces you to use a certain
software (a web browser!!!) and a certain web service.

This is a strange explanation as geocaches requesting you to find a certain image on google earth
are pretty common. On the other hand Geocaching.com seems to have a business with google. This
may be the explanation why they don't like to deal with openstreetmap. I really wonder if
it's google behind this.

This includes quite extreme behaviour on the GC.com side as they are not using their usual methods 
of disabling or archiving caches. Instead they reset their entire database with respect to this 
cache to the state before it was published. It's like they really want to clean all traces related to 
this geocache. 

IMHO a very interesting issue and may mean that google sees a serious competitor arriving ...

Till