They kindly ask you to contribute, they promote you, they reward you, then they kick you out — a typical Google Story
Google is full of volunteer programs, and every program has the same life cycle: they hire a team, the team promote some contributors, that are grown up to the Top Contributor level, and when they become “too much helpful” they kick them out.
This is the story of one of them: me.
I’m a computer science engineer and a professional photographer; in 2013 Google Maps launched a program that granted some professionals to create panoramic photography to sell to customers along with a Google certification.
Took more than one year to be accepted, and required some investment in equipment, but in 2014 I was able to develop my business, and launch my own brand for Google Virtual Tours.
During that time, I was really helpful in the support forums and helped many photographers entering the program, and even experienced users received tips and tricks on how to work; this effort was recognized by official support (Googlers and Adecco subcontractors).
Meanwhile, Google Maps launched a volunteer program called Local Guides to improve the quality of contributions on maps; a Local Guide (short, LG) is a Google Maps user that add reviews, photos and corrects issues in the maps as a volunteer.
Having added thousand of photos and hundred of reviews to maps, at the launch of the program I automatically received the maximum LG level available at that time, Level 5.
Levels in LG program mean perks and prizes, and I received invites to exclusive parties, and many prizes.
In 2016 Google held the first Street View Summit (SVT) for professionals, where we all were told that the LG program will be merged to SVT, and that any professional photographer will be invited to join LG too. We were told to create another Google account to separate LG volunteer activity from SVT paid activity, and so I did; remember this point.
Support to LG is performed through a community platform called Local Guides Connect (short LGC); in a while become clear that my presence was so supportive they cannot make without and at the beginning of 2017 I was asked to become Connect Moderator (a sort of super-volunteer that takes care of Local Guides Connect).
In march 2017 I launched the Italia LG community with an huge event in Milan, completely funded by me and some sponsors
They featured me in videos, interviews, promoted me in social networks and LGC. This is my LGC profile.
And some month after I was invited to the 2nd official summit in San Francisco, all expenses paid, the mother of all the perks for a Local Guide.
The offer to become Connect Moderator ended in nothing, and unfortunately, I had to cancel my participation to the Summit due to work duties.
This was the beginning of the end.
At that time I was the most appreciated user on LGC, and the one with the highest number of best answers (this is when a user ask something and your reply is considered helpful); I collected a lot of “badges” that means nothing more that you are appreciated. In August 2018 I reached the maximum level a Local Guide can reach, LVL10. Here you can read some of my greatest and succesful topics in LGC.
This was too much.
A the beginning of 2018 I received an hangout request from the LG team, and they asked me to be less supportive because users disguise me as a Googler, and this could not be allowed. They asked me to reply according to their Google policies, even if I was not a Googler. They asked me to attend at least 3 hangouts to review my actions. I was really shocked.
At the end of this evaluation time they asked me to avoid replying in LGC except for the SVT (Street View Trusted) board for a month. And I complied.
In the first months of the year, some Googlers of the LG team left the program, Luis Rodriguez and Gus Moreira first, and something slightly changed.
So what happened?
The whole 2018 passed without any issue, but on december, 17, I received an awful email when the team, kindly, kicked me out of LG , and even from the SVT program.
The reasons where:
- Having more than one account
- Had my childrens enrolled in the program even if they were under 18 years
- Having promoted workarounds
- Bad language
- Having collected personal informations of Local Guides
- Having abused Google and Local Guides brand to obtain economic advantages
A nightmare, a Black Mirror episode, I was shocked.
Looks really bad, isn’t true?
But, wait…
Could this be true? They invested so much time on me, they gave me so many prizes and perks, and they were completely wrong? I was a soooo bad guy and they didn’t recognized it in more than three years? And they even proposed me and promoted in many ways?
Let’s see what they are referring to.
They wrote that i was removed “for conduct and activities that violated our Local Guides Program Rules , our community policy, and Google’s Terms of Service. Your conduct goes against the things we do to make Local Guides a great community for everyone around the world.”
I suggest you to take a look to the LG rules, the part that says:
“The Local Guides program is for individuals, not businesses. Contributions from businesses or business pages will not count toward Local Guides levels or benefits.”
So any SVT photographer or agency should be kicked out of the LG program; this is well written here:
“Organizations, brands and businesses cannot participate in the Program. If the user offers paid services, for example by promoting himself as a Street View Certified provider, he is not authorized to associate them with his participation in Local Guides.”
This, in my opinion means that if you are approaching a business you cannot to sell a photographic service you are not allowed to sell him a 5 stars review, and that’s what I’ve always said to anyone asking me how to balance between LG and SVT activity.
I was even asked by the team to talk about this topic in an official hangout! And I was the one they asked for guidelines on this topic!
Now this guideline is used against me.
There is another interesting part, that is related to multiple accounts:
“To accumulate benefits, contributions to Google Maps must be received from a single Google account and cannot be transferred from one account to another.”
It’s clear that you should not use the LG program with multiple accounts and asking to merge the points in only one account. But is also clear that you should not use your multiple accounts to give some advantages to one main account. And that was not the case. Remember? In 2016 we were asked as SVT to open another account, and enroll it in LG, because SVT will be shortly included in LG.
And so WE did it; I don’t know any single SVT or agency that have only one account; I had (and have) maybe two hundred of accounts, and just 3 or 4 of them were enrolled in LG just to obtain the SVT status.
Let’s talk about my sons. They enrolled LG because are maps users, and they like to try everything that is warmly suggested to them (and Local Guides popups on Maps are sooooo cute!); so happened they joined and enjoyed LG for a while. As I discovered it I told them to exit the program, and they did it, but they don’t live with me (I’m divorced) and eventually they joined again. My son gave me a 5 stars rating on my Google MyBusiness page. I removed it as soon as I discovered, to avoid being considered an abuser.
And what about workarounds? You should know that you can upload photos to places in maps. But some places simply doesn’t accept photos and contributions, because of how they were mapped or because are intended not to be updated by users (i.e. countries, cities…).
Well, you could notice that even that places are full of user photos; how they did it? It’s really easy, if you open a photo on your smartphone (iOS or Android) and you hit the “share” button, you will be asked to share on maps, and after that you will be prompted to select a location
In this way you will be able to upload photos to place that, usually, cannot receive if you start from Google Maps.
This is a considered a workaround 😂 that potentially could destroy the whole Google Maps platform 😱 and so is not allowed to share and talk about this; and so I did, but I made the mistake to talk about this amazing hack in a couple of post, being harassed for this by another user, a Connect Moderator, that have a lot of trust from the team (from here the bad language violation…). This is only an option offered by the mobile operating system, and if Google Maps team thinks that is something that should not be allowed they should talk with Android and iOS teams to fix it.
And what about collecting informations about other Local Guides? Well, there is a section in LGC where you can submit ideas (one of my ideas was one of the first to be implemented), and one of them was the creation of a form where Maps users can suggest new category creation for places. I made the mistake to leave the email collect field on the form, and I was kindly asked to remove it. You can read the whole story here, nothing hidden.
Last accuse, having abused Google and Local Guides brands for economical advantages. What this could mean? That I presented myself as Google employee to have a job? Or that I presented myself as a Top Local Guide to get hired? Nothing of this never happened.
In 2016 I defended Google brand from one fake agency that pretended to be Google while approaching customers, and I was filed a lawsuit for this. So I was actively defending Google and Local Guides brands and programs from people that were abusing. And during the last years reported many, many fake agencies and users that abused the program terms. Thousands of other LGs and SVTs can testify I was always compliant with these rules, and some of them even created an online petition asking the team to reinstate me.
Even now that more than 11 months passed after my ban, LGs and SVT photographers ask me help on several channels.
So why are you ranting? Do you want more prizes?
No, I don’t need prizes, I need my SVT status to be re-enabled as it was before LG program started. And I would like to recover my LG status because the accusations received are slanderous.
Everyone knows that Google volunteer programs are not only funny, but business, and you should be aware of the fact that your contributions are helping a Big Data Company improve its revenues and influence in the market.
But you should be also aware of the fact that being TOO much helpful, and appreciated by the community could easily lead to a blacklist affecting many of your online activities. They transform you from a resource to a problem, and simply they wipe out the problem.
So what are you planning to do now?
I was always concerned about Google Maps quality, with great value contributions, and thousands of edits; everything with respect of guidelines and ethic, a personal ethic harder than the Google one.
Now that no rules apply to me, now that I’m free to sell reviews, edits in maps, or upload wrong pictures to damage competitors, I’m free to become one of the evil agencies I always fight along with Google.
So I’m on the market, with tens of LVL10 LG accounts, tens of SVT accounts, ready to write fake reviews, upload wrong photos and use real hacks and workarounds to reduce the value of Google Maps.
But I will not.
Because I will never get rid of my ethic and my values just because others, the LG team, did it; I can be and I’m better than them, and I will go on improving Google Maps and help other users when and where I can, just because I’m happy doing so.
But be adviced: don’t trust these people, they don’t care about quality of contributions, they don’t care about helpful people, they don’t want to help users at all, they only care about numbers. This is not an accusation to a single person or a group of people of the team, because they never take personally the responsability of a single action.
My hope is that this topic will be raised to the highest levels, and that someone responsible for these awful actions will change his job and will be forced to leave the LG team; we deserve more than this, it’s pretty obvious they forgot the old “don’t be evil” statement and they are not giving a great image of the program.
July update
In the last days my profile on Local Guides Connect has been accessed by someone (i suppose of the team) to do some activity under my name.
This is something really weird, and potentially abusive.
Final update
With a short pre-advice Google Maps team decided to separate, again, the two paths, LG and SVT. Is no longer required to be an LG to offer SVT services. This 4 years, after the original announcement caused many, many issues, including the threatment they did to me. Obviously nothing changes for me, that still have to face the damage the LG team did to my account.
Here is the official announcement (that I cannot read with my original account… I was able to do shortly after being published, then someone, manually added me to the blacklist):
Ways to participate in the Street View trusted and Local Guides programs
Those of you who aren’t new to trusted know that there is some overlap between our program and the Local Guides program.
Previously, you were required to be a Local Guide too in order to be trusted. For professional photographers who offer paid services, this presented a number of challenges as the Local Guides program rules do not permit members to have a business name or logo in their profiles on Connect, or their Google Maps contributions pages. To minimise such challenges, we’ve recently waived that requirement, allowing you to contribute to the program of your choice, or to both independently.
Below are the various scenarios in relation to your membership in the two programs.
Be a Street View trusted photographer only
You are no longer required to be a Local Guide in order to be trusted. You may now choose to leave the Local Guides program with your current account and your trusted status will not be affected in any way.
Remain a Local Guide and trusted with the same account
If you haven’t made any changes to your setup, your account is currently signed up for both Local Guides and Street View trusted. You can decide to keep it that way and continue to use the same account to participate in both programs. If you choose this option, please make sure that the way you contribute to Google Maps abides by all Local Guides Program Terms and Conditions as well as the trusted Sales and Branding Guidelines. Accounts which are found to be consistently non-compliant are subject to removal from both programs.
For more information on how to be a Street View trusted photographer while also being a Local Guide, have a look at this post.
Remain trusted with your current account and create a new one for the Local Guides program
Another option would be to keep your current account exclusively for trusted and create a new one for Local Guides. To do that, you will first need to opt out of the Local Guides program. You will no longer be able to post on the Local Guides Connect forum, will lose all accumulated Local Guides points, and you won’t receive such for your future contributions. As you won’t be a Local Guide anymore, however, you will then be able to display your business name and logo on your Google Maps contributions page. You’ll still see the Street View trusted badge in your Street View app profile and will continue to contribute to Google Maps only as trusted. To enjoy the perks of being a Local Guides program member, please set up a different account for the program and sign up here.
Remain a Local Guide with your current account and create a new one for the Street View trusted program
Going this way means that you’ll need to opt out of trusted with your current account, create a new one, publish 50 Maps-approved 360 images and then rejoin the program with the new account. If you choose this option and are already listed on the for-hire index, we’ll be able to update your details. You can file a request with our team here.
Note: As the program is still under revamp, we are currently unable to list new users on the for-hire index.
Please consider carefully all of the options above before deciding which one best suits your needs.
Also, note that at present we cannot transfer contributions from one account to another.
October 2021, a strange update
After many, many, many appeals, suddenly, a strange email hit my mailbox.
Woha! Seems I’ve been reinstated! After three years!
Have a look to my wonderful profile!
To be sure, I try to log in to Connect, but the result is the same… so… I ask for more details… and after four days…
In this short video you can assist at a meeting of the LG support team
