[OSM-talk] Chain Store Cleanup

Andrew MacKinnon andrewpmk at gmail.com
Sat May 2 01:13:39 UTC 2015


On Fri, May 1, 2015 at 11:07 AM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
> Andrew,>
> That's a very "computer person" approach to take. In fact, the
> "McDonald's" issue has already been tried by someone in the past with an
> undiscussed mechanical edit, promptly falsifying a few non-chain
> non-fastfood places that *really* were called McDonalds just as you mention.

I am aware of this problem, though usually trademark laws would make
it illegal to operate such a store. Various weird exceptions might
exist, such as a McDonalds that existed before the well-known
McDonald's fast food restaurant existed, or something called McDonalds
that is not a fast food restaurant. There is a bus stop in Sudbury,
Ontario, Canada called "McDonalds" in front of a McDonald's fast food
restaurant which I am told is correct because the bus stop name was
accidentally misspelled by the city and never corrected. Usually this
is only a problem for a chain that only operates in certain countries,
and there are unrelated stores in other countries. I would strongly
recommend putting a note on any POI that has the name of a common fast
restaurant like McDonald's, Subway, KFC, etc. that isn't actually what
you think it is.



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