Portal submissions via Google Forms
UnFauno
✭✭
I recently stumbled upon a Facebook group that promotes a Google Form where PoGo/Ingress/HPWU players can "submit" portals.
Basically, they upload a couple of pictures, GPS coordinates, title, description, supporting information to the submitter's Google Drive. Then presumably the submitter takes this information to remotely make a Portal Nomination.
Is this against the terms of service?
0
Comments
well you can send portals from your house in prime, and i bet it will be available in pogo after, so no remote submissions arent forbidden
stuff like that seems too like if somebody tell me ''go to this place and send this, is a good candidate'' and i go, but in this example it looks like i can do it from my house due to all info given and using prime...however just will need to make sure that actually exist or isnt faked
This is against the tos. You're not supposed to submit any portal whose photograph you haven't taken yourself. After redacted is killed this will only be possible with spoofing.
what about if your camera doesnt work and you can only send the submission? ofc you are going to ask somebody else to take the picture and send it to you since prime let you pick pictures from your device, is something new, i want to see that tos statement
Ive send portals in my couch and has nothing to do with spoofing or redacted, prime let you do that as well and since prime is the future old man, isnt going to stop after redacted dies, all i needed was be there, take good pictures, come to my house and pick the best 2, 1 for portal and 1 for the surroundings
Grendewulf is right.
against tos.
It has been stated many times in the amas "don't submit portal for any location you haven't been to yourself." Now prime doesn't stop you from using photos you didn't take, but it does stop you from submitting outside a 2.5 km radius from yourself, so really there is no excuse not to visit the poi yourself and submit it
Actually Prime submit radius is 25 KM not 2.5 KM. It was updated in the beginning of the summer due to Primes struggles to submit when not in an AMAZING Signal area.
Edit: Link to updated 25 KM Submit distance on June 20th: https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/1794/changes-to-portal-nominations?sf104441488=1
Even 25 km is within a single day's walking distance of the submitter.
Wasnt questioning anything you said, just wanted to clarify the distance.
@AgentB0ss I understood.
Can you please cite the exact wording or location in the TOS? I've scoured it and find one instance of "photograph" and six of "submit", but none of them apply to this claim.
...
Thanks for doing the work for me.
Devils advocate - That is not the TOS
As far as I can find the "taken yourself" issue is a copyright issue and not a TOS violation. You can't give usage right for a picture that is not yours.
Without reading all the tos, there is a section relevant to fraud.
Using someone else's photo and presenting it as your own would fall under fraudulent activity, would it not?
There are two instances of the word "fraud" in there, but both are related to cheating. Section 5 however says this:
"You represent and warrant that you own all your User Content or you have all rights that are necessary to grant us the license rights in your User Content under these Terms. You also represent and warrant that neither your User Content, nor your use and provision of your User Content to be made available through the Services, nor any use of your User Content by Niantic on or through the Services will infringe, misappropriate or violate a third party’s intellectual property rights, or rights of publicity or privacy, or result in the violation of any applicable law or regulation."
I think the more important distinction to be made is when someone takes a picture of a candidate with the expressed purpose of using it for submission.
If someone gives me a picture they took of a valid POI candidate that meets criteria, that's an implicit granting of usage rights. They are transferring the rights to me under a given set of circumstances willingly, and I am agreeing to that use case.
Conversely, using a third party photo someone else took with no intention of submitting to Niantic's POI database obviously does not confer any rights.
Respectfully, this is not the TOS. This is a guideline in a modal within the app. The TOS is a legally binding document that everyone agrees to by using the app, whereas not everyone can even see that prompt.
That prompt has to be clicked through every time you submit in prime.
Nia have previously stated you should only submit that which you have been physically to, and taken the photo of.
Leave all the legalise out of it, if you want further clarification ask in the next ama
Other than the prompt, where exactly did they say that?
Previous amas, finding them is hard due to g+ being gone.
Thanks, I'll go see if I can find archives.
For what it's worth, I'll definitely ask for clarification in the next AMA, because I don't believe the TOS is written in such a way to prohibit submitting on behalf of someone else
Word it carefully - submitting on behalf of someone is fine, submitting with their photos and location data, without ever having been their is different.
Yes, that is a great point.
So, maybe this could be used just as a "suggestion box" for portal nominations. But actually go the location and take the pictures myself.
That's probably the best way to go about it for now, in lieu of confirmation one way or another about the TOS ramifications. In our area, we have people give us GPS coordinates so we can scout on satellite maps to weed out unlikely candidates without spending a trip. We also have a sort of photosphere team that goes out to get that map data available before the submission if needed.