{"id":1791196,"date":"2021-06-03T18:35:25","date_gmt":"2021-06-03T22:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1791196"},"modified":"2021-06-03T18:35:25","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T22:35:25","slug":"what3words-hasnt-had-the-greatest-couple-of-months-a-roundup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2021\/06\/what3words-hasnt-had-the-greatest-couple-of-months-a-roundup\/","title":{"rendered":"What3Words Hasn\u2019t Had the Greatest Couple of Months: A Roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"

The proprietary geocoding system What3words<\/a>, which assigns a three-word mapcode to each three-square-metre point on the planet, has been getting some grief lately. It\u2019s always been somewhat controversial because it\u2019s a closed system, and because of the steps What3words has taken to protect its proprietary database and algorithms: it\u2019s issued takedown notices relating to the compatible, open-source WhatFreeWords (details here<\/a>), to the point of threatening a security researcher over his tweets about it<\/a> last April. Which, you know, got noticed.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also been the subject of several parodies<\/a>, including what3emojis<\/a> (emojis instead of words), Four King Maps<\/a> (four swear words, UK and Ireland only on account of a lack of swear words, which frankly disappoints me) and Maps Mania\u2019s own April Fool\u2019s joke<\/a> for this year, what2figures<\/a>, which expresses any point on the globe in just two numbers (I\u2019ll wait).<\/p>\n

But more recently it\u2019s come under criticism<\/a> for having similar sounding word combinations for addresses only a few miles apart: see Andrew Tierney\u2019s blog post<\/a> (which expands upon this Twitter thread<\/a>) and What3words\u2019s response<\/a>. This is especially a problem for first responders trying to locate someone who may have misspoken or mistyped their location, or because of their accent, resulting in rescue teams being sent to the wrong location<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The proprietary geocoding system What3words, which assigns a three-word mapcode to each three-square-metre point on the planet, has been getting some grief lately. It\u2019s always been somewhat controversial because it\u2019s a closed system, and because… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[311,420,1515],"class_list":["post-1791196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-web-mapping","tag-geocoding","tag-geolocation","tag-what3words","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1818301,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2023\/09\/what3words-confusion-rate-under-scrutiny\/","url_meta":{"origin":1791196,"position":0},"title":"What3Words Confusion Rate Under Scrutiny","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"5 September 2023","format":"link","excerpt":"The What3Words geocoding service assigns a three-word mapcode to every three-square-metre patch on the planet, the premise being that three words are easier to remember and share than longitude and latitude to the equivalent decimal places. But the main complaint about What3Words (apart from the proprietary nature of its algorithm\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Map Errors"","block_context":{"text":"Map Errors","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/map-errors\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1840530,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/05\/adventures-in-unpreparedness\/","url_meta":{"origin":1791196,"position":1},"title":"Adventures in Unpreparedness","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"11 May 2025","format":"link","excerpt":"Two recent cautionary tales about the risks of going forth without proper navigational tools. First, I\u2019m a bit confused about this BBC News report, which cites what3words as coming through when a boat broke down in the Channel Islands area: [The rescue service] said although the vessel had no working\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "GPS"","block_context":{"text":"GPS","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/gps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2612,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/08\/mapping-the-rio-olympics\/","url_meta":{"origin":1791196,"position":2},"title":"Mapping the Rio Olympics","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"11 August 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"Fiasco Design's Rio 2016 Interactive Map (screencap above) is a cheeky game-style enviroment that mixes Olympic venues with local controversies. This Esri Story Map looks at the Olympic venues in detail. [Glenn Letham] What3words, a company that assigns a three-word mapcode to every location in the world\u2014useful in places like\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sport & Recreation"","block_context":{"text":"Sport & Recreation","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/sport-recreation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"rio-interactive-screenshot","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/rio-interactive-screenshot-1024x552.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/rio-interactive-screenshot-1024x552.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/rio-interactive-screenshot-1024x552.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/rio-interactive-screenshot-1024x552.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1806660,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2022\/04\/clock-and-compass\/","url_meta":{"origin":1791196,"position":3},"title":"Review: Clock and Compass","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"12 April 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Mark Monmonier\u2019s latest book, Clock and Compass: How John Byron Plato Gave Farmers a Real Address\u2014out today from the University of Iowa Press\u2014is a spinoff of sorts. This relatively slim volume does a deep dive on one of the inventions featured in his previous book, Patents and Cartographic Inventions: the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Book Reviews","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/book-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Book cover: Clock and Compass","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/clock-and-compass-200x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2391,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/07\/the-wsj-on-null-island\/","url_meta":{"origin":1791196,"position":4},"title":"The WSJ on Null Island","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"13 July 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"Here's another, more in-depth look at Null Island, a point at the\u00a0intersection of the equator and prime meridian that shows up\u00a0in the event of a geocoding error, this time from the Wall Street Journal\u2019s\u00a0Robert Lee Hotz. [WMS] Previously:\u00a0Null Island.","rel":"","context":"In "GIS"","block_context":{"text":"GIS","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/gis\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":950,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/02\/null-island\/","url_meta":{"origin":1791196,"position":5},"title":"Null Island","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"19 February 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"Zero degrees longitude, zero degrees latitude is literally nowhere: situated in the middle of the open ocean, off the coast of Africa in the Gulf of Guinea, the only thing to mark its presence is a weather observation buoy\u00a0[via].\u00a0But it's also a\u00a0significant set of coordinates, in that it's the location\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cartography"","block_context":{"text":"Cartography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/cartography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/zero-zero.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1791196"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1791201,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791196\/revisions\/1791201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1791196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1791196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1791196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}