Any user in Australia can now personally update Google Maps to ensure they are more accurate.
For some time Google has enabled users in the United States and Canada to offer improvements and updates to its maps.
That service will now be extended to users in Australia and nine other countries.
The news comes as Google rolls out significant updates to its Australia maps to show more address data, building footprints, bike paths and walking trails amongst other features.
The updates will roll out over the next 24 hours, and will be applied automatically to existing Maps API applications.
Thor Mitchell, Google Maps API product manager, wrote on the Google Maps blog that the aim was to improve accuracy.
“To do that we need to have the best quality map data possible, and we believe that nobody knows the world around them better than our users For this reason we’re always excited when we can update our maps and enable users to participate in improving them.”
Google Maps users will be able to report issues and suggest alternative routes or corrections, as well as charting temporary disruptions such as roadworks.
Google Maps faces some competition from new applications such as OpenStreetMap, essentially an open wiki that allows users to create and update content.
