Another company makes allegations against Google

After search engine giant Google’s run-in with Kenyan-based Mocality, another company has accused Google of illegally accessing its data. OpenGeoData accuse the search engine company of abusing and changing its data.

“Preliminary results show users from Google IP address ranges in India deleting, moving and abusing OSM data including subtle edits like reversing one-way streets,” the company alleges in a statement on its website.

OpenGeoData went on to say that numerous other countries in their network have experienced similar vandalism. “… OSM in London, New York and elsewhere is being vandalised from Google’s IP address, the same address in India reported by Mocality.”

“We felt on balance that making the minimum facts public was the right thing to do,” founder member of OSM, Steve Coast and board member Mikel Maron said in a joint statement on their website.

Google has in turn distanced themselves from the claims. “The two people who made these changes were contractors acting on their own behalf while on the Google network. They are no longer working on Google projects,” reports CNET.

Referring to Mocality, “Google has since apologised, saying it was embarrassed to learn about the activities,”

Charlie Fripp – Acting Online editor