Google is now eliminating one of the first of many, and one of its oldest services – the custom map maker service. The service, which debuted 9 years ago, in 2008, allowed anyone to make edits to maps. The company did not deem it necessary for the map maker to have a separate platform, and this was the case for quite the while, as it moved some of the Map Maker’s services and features to the maps mobile, and desktop apps.
Google’s local guides rewarded the users who posted updates to maps, rewarding them by giving them access to new maps features, however, as time went by, this feature became useless, and more recently, local guides got the ability to edit road sections, however, this feature was made available to only a few selected users, those of who, who had a high reliability rating.
With map maker, anyone could easily make edits and add reviews to existing locations. The main target here was to aid the maps with regular updates in difficult places, where perhaps it isn’t as easy to go. As time went by, people started to doubt the credibility of the maps, and it became infamous for a number of reasons, however, one major reason that might be considered is that in May 2015, someone from Pakistan edited Rawalpindi’s map, which showed an Android logo urinating on an Apple logo. Google not only had to shut down the service for some time but also had to apologize on the behalf of the culprit.
