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Publishing this from the UK is rather risky given What3Words have a tendency to engage in SLAPPs on anyone who pulls back the curtain on their product



No, it isn’t risky in the least. The analysis makes no use of proprietary data and illustrates potential problems which arise from choices made in the algorithm’s design in an abstract way, using a different word list from the claimed proprietary one that W3W use. The legal threat in question was made because W3W claimed that Andrew Toponce was linking to a product which used their allegedly proprietary word list in a series of tweets. Please don’t make unfounded fear-mongering comments about academic research – they cumulatively have the same effect as the threats you claim to be drawing attention to.




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