Google Maps Posting Restrictions For User Generated Content

Google has posted a new help document for posting restrictions around user-generated content in Google Maps. This is specific to reviews, photos, and videos users may update to Google Maps. This may also include content such as ratings or Q&A topics.

I spotted this via LocalU who wrote, “This is the first time that Google has broken down the various types of restrictions.”

Here are those restriction types:

Short-term restrictions

Posting may be turned off for a particular place for a short period of time to help protect the place or area from a spike in irrelevant or offensive content (for example, during a real-world event that attracts off-topic commentary on a particular place). We monitor the place and when we see the abuse attempts and the risk of policy-violating content subside, we lift the restrictions.

Long-term restrictions

Posting on a particular place may be turned off for a longer period of time if its category or geographic area has experienced a continuous pattern of low value or off-topic posts. Contributions are considered low value when they don’t typically play a large part in helping users decide whether to visit the place.

The following are characteristics of places where we may restrict UGC:

• Generally unvisitable or have limited public access. These are places where people typically don’t have a choice about which location to go to, that aren’t open to the public, or where access to the place may be limited to people who are stationed or assigned there. Examples include police stations and prisons.
• Attracts ongoing, off-topic content. These places are frequently subject to unhelpful posts like harassment, hate speech, or offensive content, rather than reviews or posts about users’ direct experiences at that location.

Partial vs. full restrictions

Depending on the volume and pattern of policy violating content, a particular place may have posting restrictions on some or all of the types of UGC (including Text Reviews, Ratings, Images, Videos).

Why some places may not have posts, or have only old posts

Some places may have noticeably old content with no recent posts, or no historical posts at all (when you had noticed content before). This may be because the place experienced abuse and the content was removed.

Forum discussion at Twitter.