Comments on: Google Maps suffers huge infusion of Remote Call Forwarding Mapspam

By: Art

Art — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:45:27 +0000

I’m wondering if Google will be getting into the RCF business themselves. This article gives an overview of the Google Voice service soon to be released to the masses.

http://searchengineland.com/google-voice-next-generation-telco-16904

By: Art

Art — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:59:57 +0000

Looks like Google may be getting into the RCF business themselves with Google Voice: https://www.google.com/voice/about

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:20:07 +0000

Steve

Thanks for stopping by.

As of yet, Google has not done anything about this instance. If I were you, I would repost into the Google Maps Spam thread.

Mike

By: Steve Pellham

Steve Pellham — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:09:25 +0000

Thanks to you and Cathy for bringing additional attention to this issue – I did report the original info I found per your reply in the Google Group. Hopefully the spam team will look into this further.

By: panzermike

panzermike — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 04:45:48 +0000

Mike:

Great work. I didn’t realize that Google Maps relied so heavily upon Yellow Pages.com. Hmmmm.

By: Cathy

Cathy — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:51:31 +0000

Right. And all those other listings have been populated into G Maps, too.

Note that the sole citation for each is yellowpages.com.

By: Mike Blumenthal

Mike Blumenthal — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:39:38 +0000

The Yellowpages.com listing also showed another “DBA” that I had not searched on and it also showed an interesting mix of 800 & Local numbers:

Cornelius Florist Concierge
Cornelius, NC 28031
(704) 765-4234

Cornelius Florist Directory
Cornelius, NC 28031
(888) 533-0980

Cornelius Florist Telesales Directory
Cornelius, NC 28031
(888) 860-6434

Cornelius Flower Shops
Cornelius, NC 28031
(704) 314-4425

Cornelius Flower Shops Directory
Cornelius, NC 28031
(888) 877-3203

Cornelius Flowers by Grower
Cornelius, NC 28031
(888) 291-6282

Mike

By: Cathy

Cathy — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:14:15 +0000

Mike -

Thanks for the coverage on this story. To further illustrate how the spammer is using IYPs to enter G Maps, look at a query for the phone number for the first Florist Directory listing, ‘Cornelius Florist Directory’. The sole result is yellowpages.com.

Perhaps G Maps puts an emphasis on ‘freshness’, so these new bogus listings get pushed out live quickly. (AFAICT the spammer listings have yet to appear in either Yahoo Local/Maps or Live’s Local listings.) But this particular case of spam would be difficult to detect via a filter since every listing has a unique local or toll-free phone number.

In the locksmith thread, one of the commenters suggested the YPs and IYPs be contacted about this issue. Believe me, it’s been tried in the floral industry – by both state and national associations – for more than a decade (in the case of print directories).

I’m only aware of a few cases where it’s been successful, and it’s usually because a state law has teeth and financially penalizes the YPs for publishing the deceptive listings. Most states do not have such penalties and the YP publishers have far better lobbyists than the local florists.

Cathy