Beware of fake beaches (Pokémon Go)

Do not adjust your set: this is a forum thread from April 2024 about Pokemon Go players trying to cheat by getting geospatial data changed. Equal parts hilarious and sad.

Surely Niantic Labs should freeze their copy of OSM data to prevent this kind of abuse.

TL;DR:<p>Online game company Niantic Labs uses OSM for a game, restricts certain features to beaches and other natural and artificial elements.<p>Then, Niantic Labs users edit OSM to add fake natural formations to game the system. Beaches and parks are added to cities where they don&#x27;t exist.<p>OSM community tries to tackle the phenomenon by guiding users to correctly edit map features before reporting them.

I wondered why there was a beach with the name of a private person in the house next to mine.

&gt; <i>There’s no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is other people!</i> —JPCAS

I never realized pokemon Go used openstreetmaps. Why not just the Google Maps API?