Google Maps lets users edit and update listings: crowd-sourcing that’s helped Google to fill in the details of its maps, such as adding new roads or parks: a helpful feature, particularly in areas where governments restrict distribution of such data or in what are often less-developed regions.
Some of the results have been giggle-worthy, even though they involve deceptive practices that we don’t endorse, such as sock puppetry that lets the pranksters create fake accounts that they then use to approve their own pranks.
For example, we’ve seen Google Maps depict the Android mascot robot peeing onto the Apple logo,and a giant cat that sprawled over Auckland’s Hobson Bay Walkway.
Besides graphic hijinks, we’ve also seen user-generated content that’s involved changing the details of an address: for example, Google Maps at one point was induced to display a snowboarding shop called Edwards Snow Den, located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: an address otherwise known as the White House.