TomTom eliminated Churches from POIs - Does TomTom dislike religion?

Joined
Feb 21, 2008
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Has anyone noticed that TomTom deleted all churches between 705 and 710?

I questioned them today about it & was told that they had to remove all churches "for legal reasons".

What legal reasons would make them remove churches? I'm not going to go as far to say that someone at TomTom has something against religion, but I'm not going to say they don't either until I understand why they did this.

Anyone know?
 
Has anyone noticed that TomTom deleted all churches between 705 and 710?

I questioned them today about it & was told that they had to remove all churches "for legal reasons".

What legal reasons would make them remove churches? I'm not going to go as far to say that someone at TomTom has something against religion, but I'm not going to say they don't either until I understand why they did this.

Anyone know?

The large poi.dat file of 270+ megs that is normally available for the 920 series has them in the 710 maps.
 
Has anyone noticed that TomTom deleted all churches between 705 and 710?

I questioned them today about it & was told that they had to remove all churches "for legal reasons".

What legal reasons would make them remove churches? I'm not going to go as far to say that someone at TomTom has something against religion, but I'm not going to say they don't either until I understand why they did this.

Anyone know?
I bet it's because they're afraid of offending someone
 
I bet it's because they're afraid of offending someone


Possibly so, but instead, they're offended me.

Another TT rep tried to tell me they got rid of the church POI's to make room - that's funny because what does come up when I search for "Churches" is no fewer than 15 "Church's Fried Chicken" joints. They have enough space to list all the locations of a crummy tier 2 fried chicken joint, but can't spare the space to list churches.

TT is being awfully slimy on this topic- they said they "accidentally" included the POI's in the 705 maps, and took them out because of legal issues, although they can't explain the legal issues. I say BS. Its much more likely they're scared of some narrow minded fool complaining that they're forcing religion because they offer church listings.
 
Possibly so, but instead, they're offended me.

Another TT rep tried to tell me they got rid of the church POI's to make room - that's funny because what does come up when I search for "Churches" is no fewer than 15 "Church's Fried Chicken" joints. They have enough space to list all the locations of a crummy tier 2 fried chicken joint, but can't spare the space to list churches.

TT is being awfully slimy on this topic- they said they "accidentally" included the POI's in the 705 maps, and took them out because of legal issues, although they can't explain the legal issues. I say BS. Its much more likely they're scared of some narrow minded fool complaining that they're forcing religion because they offer church listings.
Yeah, that smells fishy to me. Oh well. Guess you or someone else could start working on creating your own POI file. In fact, I'm sure there may already be something like that if you looked around...
 
If I were to guess...

They're afraid of having to list every Church, Synagogue, Mosque, Temple, etc., including crazy cults and less-desirable listings for fear of being sued by cults for inclusion.
 
I can't believe this thread is here. Do you honestly believe the crap you spew forth here? They've offended you? Don't buy their product then. They have NO reason to explain their actions to you if they don't want to... of course, from a customer perspective standpoint, it looks bad, but the overall sence of entitlement displayed here (as in, all over the interwebs) is insane.

So they removed churches, so what? Lets not even talk about the "leagal reasons" of which there could be literally thousands (some mentioned above). Just from a business standpoint, two very good reasons come to mind (I am sure there are others):

1) Space - resources (memory, processor, screen size...) in a small electronic device are limited. While technology is constantly changing and increasing the resources, so to are the demands on those resources. For example, the xbox 360 is incredibly powerful compared to the original xbox, yet when you tax that power with high-def graphics, it's actual performance is absorbed by the higher utilization. The same holds true of TT devices.

2) Target audience - building on #1... examining your target audience. How many people need directions to their own church? I am thinking nearly no one. On the other hand, when travelling, how many people need directions to things like food (churches chicken), gas, or other travel-related items like golf courses, shopping plaza's, entertainment attractions and the like? Everyone - that's why we (the target audience) buy these devices.

Sure, you might want to come back and say "well, if I am on vacation and I want to go to church, how am I supposed to find one?" - and that's a valid question - but it comes back to the target audience - you would be in an extreme minority - and that's how we come back to legal reasons - what's a religion, what's a religion "worth" including, which churches should be included and which are just some crackpot's house, who's to say someone is a crackpot and not a genuine man of God (whomever her or she may believe in)?

All of these questions lead to huge legal cans of worms, which, as stated previously, are the business of the Tom Tom company, not any person who calls their support line demanding answers.

I'm not trying to start a firestorm here, just put things in perspective for you.
 
You seem to have a high opinion of yourself.

If you don't intend to start a firestorm, don't use words like entitlement and spewing forth of crap.

There is no entitlement involved here. If you want to put a label on it, I'd call it bait and switch. I bought the 720 partially because I was impressed that it had churches as a POI category. I searched for several small, historical churches around my community while I was looking at the 720 at the store and it had them. I was impressed by that attention to detail, and I bought it. Then, after the 710 map update, all of those POI's disappeared, and TT didn't give me any option to recover them. That's a problem. Its akin to buying a car because it has a feature you really like and then having the dealer uninstall that feature without your permission the first time you bring the car in for service. If I'm entitled to something, it is an entitlement to a product keeping, at a minimum, the same features that weighed into my decision to purchase it. So, say goodbye to your first self-righteous indignation, or do you still think that's insane?

As to your rationalizations about why these POI's would not be included, they need some work. Your comparison to including a text file (of POI's) on the 720to the harware load of rendering high defininton graphics with real time physics on the XBOX is so much of a stretch that I have to question your basic understanding of technology. To put it into perspective, there are around 360,000 churches recognized by the US Census bureau, these are across 84 denominations which are defined as having at least 60,000 followers. A single POI takes up around 40 bytes of data (10 char name, 20 char GPS coords, 10 char phone number). Multiply that out, and you have a raw space requirement of 14,400,000 or 14MB. Standard compression algorithms compact text to around 95% which means the hardware cost on the TT is 5% of 14MB, or 720K. That's not quite HALO.

As for your legal argument, TT is a private, foreign company. As a private company, they're not bound to any separation clauses restricting them from listing churches. There are no US laws that restrict private companies from listing churches (take a look at a yellow pages directory). Where's this can of worms you talk about?

To your question about "what is a religion" - I think the US Census guideline referenced above is a nice one.

As for your "target audience" argument, 82% of the population considers themselves religious and 60% of the population attend church regularly. If you don't consider those percentages significant portions of your "target audience", please tell me where you got your MBA so I can make sure my kids don't go there.

I'm not trying to perpetuate a firestorm here, just putting things into perspective for you. All of what you said is refutable, except your argument that if it offends me that I shouldn't buy it. I agree with that. Unfortunately, that is irrelevant to anything in this thread (other than it may deter prospective buyers of the 720, which is a benefit I wish I had before buying the unit)

So, mr moral authority, get off your pony and walk away.




I can't believe this thread is here. Do you honestly believe the crap you spew forth here? They've offended you? Don't buy their product then. They have NO reason to explain their actions to you if they don't want to... of course, from a customer perspective standpoint, it looks bad, but the overall sence of entitlement displayed here (as in, all over the interwebs) is insane.

So they removed churches, so what? Lets not even talk about the "leagal reasons" of which there could be literally thousands (some mentioned above). Just from a business standpoint, two very good reasons come to mind (I am sure there are others):

1) Space - resources (memory, processor, screen size...) in a small electronic device are limited. While technology is constantly changing and increasing the resources, so to are the demands on those resources. For example, the xbox 360 is incredibly powerful compared to the original xbox, yet when you tax that power with high-def graphics, it's actual performance is absorbed by the higher utilization. The same holds true of TT devices.

2) Target audience - building on #1... examining your target audience. How many people need directions to their own church? I am thinking nearly no one. On the other hand, when travelling, how many people need directions to things like food (churches chicken), gas, or other travel-related items like golf courses, shopping plaza's, entertainment attractions and the like? Everyone - that's why we (the target audience) buy these devices.

Sure, you might want to come back and say "well, if I am on vacation and I want to go to church, how am I supposed to find one?" - and that's a valid question - but it comes back to the target audience - you would be in an extreme minority - and that's how we come back to legal reasons - what's a religion, what's a religion "worth" including, which churches should be included and which are just some crackpot's house, who's to say someone is a crackpot and not a genuine man of God (whomever her or she may believe in)?

All of these questions lead to huge legal cans of worms, which, as stated previously, are the business of the Tom Tom company, not any person who calls their support line demanding answers.

I'm not trying to start a firestorm here, just put things in perspective for you.
 
well stated and written point/counter-point. we clearly have differing opinions of things, I find it's awesome that we are able to express them freely and openly.
 

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