Is anyone else starting to see map spam popping up in their areas? Over the past few months, I've seen 3 OSM entries that I'm calling map spam for lack of a better term. I know that doesn't seem like a lot, but it could be a new trend.
Specifically, what I'm finding is a well-formed node for a small business, complete with phone number and (on 2 of them) websites. The problem is that the node is miles away from the address in question. I didn't investigate or document the first couple of them too well, but the most recent one that I found today was by a user who has exactly 1 edit (the spam one), and the user account's comment is the URL for the business, too. The *name* of the user doesn't match the county's property owner records. Because the entry was so well-formed, I'm going to assume that the person is familiar with OSM and the account was created specifically to make this one entry. Also, because it was a single node in an otherwise mostly-complete area, I'm going to assume that the person made a reasonable guess that the node wouldn't be noticed. I'm also going to guess that the person in question runs some sort of "get your business listed on 100's of websites!" thing and this is one way he gets that done (by adding it to OSM, it also gets added to Where2GetIt and all of the other sites that use OSM data). I deleted the node. My reasons for the deletion are: 1) The address is in a residential neighborhood. I am going to _assume_ that were I to drive by it (which I might be able to do next weekend), I will not see any signage for the business at the address. 2) The business website does not have that address (or ANY address) anywhere on it. 3) The node was well out-of-location for the contained address. 4) The user account appears to be nothing more than a spam account, since it has only the one edit and the URL of the business. The node in question is: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/3787125448/history So I pose this to the assembled horde: Has anyone else noticed random spammy nodes in their area? Does anyone disagree with my reasoning or actions? And if not, is there a standard process for reporting suspected spam user accounts? Regards, Jack
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