and with the University Bristol Hospital issue here http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/maps/thread?tid=09b28f33315baf7c&hl=en

In both cases Joel appeared on July 13.

Interesting.

Wouldn’t life be a lot easier for google and hospitals if they just reinserted the emergency contact method they installed last November and then quietly removed.

I have pointed out your forum posting to Google. Pls let me know if there is no response.

There is no update.

Three weeks later, and I have not heard a word from Google, nor has anyone responded to my question on the help forum, nor has the incorrect listing been removed.

In fact if Google won’t directly respond, I might go into twitter, get an acct, if you don’t already have one. If you do a “people search” in twitter for the word hospital by example, there are plenty of hospitals already on twitter, and they have plenty of followers. I’m sure you could find other concerned groups by doing “people searches” using other health oriented words.

I suspect if these problems persist the industry would get riled up once they learned of the issues and it emerged from darkness.

That isn’t the most direct way to get direct “customer service”. That way has always tended to work though, when a business that effects many seems to operate in the dark.

Meanwhile a twitter campaign referencing Miriam’s article was raising awareness in wider world as to the quiet change in Google’s policy.

You might want to reference your problem in twitter and direct it at all the health care and hospital accounts on line.

Frankly, I think it would be easier for Google to reinstate the emergency contact policy.

Alternatively they could stop inserting contact numbers from their algo’s, which are obviously faulty to some degree, and direct people to the hospital websites, or some other alternative wherein they aren’t aggregating data that is faulty and then presenting it to a public that has come to rely on Google’s accuracy.

Obviously the problem started before it was first reported on June, 8, 2009

Imagine receiving 16 days or more of service that disrupts your efforts, in a hospital no less….and the entity causing the problem won’t even communicate with you….let alone fix it.

Thanks for the nod and the link to your new article. Nice job.

There is a line of thought that says that Google might be the least to blame in an environment of unbridled capitalism. They do what any good capitalist would do; decrease expense and increase income. That is how capitalism works.

If they have a shred of a sense of civic responsibility, they do, Mike.

Google knows they have become the way people find local data. They have edged out the phone book. We need to see Google take responsibility for the situation they’ve created.

I’m horrified by the scenario Manning Peterson has described and am further convinced that Google is not acting in good faith with the recent removal of their direct contact information for emergency service providers.

I’ve updated the information we are offering on our blog regarding this and I’m asking the public to respond to Google’s policy:
http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=540

I’m really grateful that you’ve shed light on this very serious problem, Mike. That’s what I call being civic-minded!

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