Sunday, April 7, 2013

Case filed against Google Mapathon by Geological Survey of India


Google Mapathon a contest conducted by google India was a huge success among the mappers as many important edits were mapped and the project mainly became famous because it was the first of its kind- CROWD SOURCING.
Crowdsourcing is the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers. Often used to subdivide tedious work or to fund-raise startup companies and charities, this process can occur both online and offline
Users were given a chance to make edits through Google Mapmaker a tool generally used to report problems, make changes or add new places to Google Maps. The contest started February 12th 2013 and ended on March 25th it was meant to create better maps in India, the users were attracted by the prizes that were offered based on their number of edits that were approved by other mappers. Google invited users to help "create better maps for India" by adding knowledge of their neighborhoods and promised the top 1,000 mappers prizes of tablets, smartphones and gift vouchers.
But when everything ended well Geological Survey of India a government organization started the criticizing Google that it had not followed any instructions and did not respond to its letter.
Survey of India first wrote to Google saying its "Mapathon" was against rules and then filed a police complaint, R.C. Padhi, a top official at the agency, told Reuters.
"We have to ensure that security is not compromised at any cost," Padhi said, adding that some information uploaded on Google Maps could be "sensitive".
Google is open to discussing specific concerns over the issue with public authorities in India, Paroma Roy Chowdhury, a company spokeswoman in India said in a statement.