After halting the service due to an influx of spam, Google is ready to open Map Maker again, with changes that hand much of the control back to users.

Map Maker lets people update the information in Google Maps to make it more accurate. The service will reopen in phases starting early next month, Pavithra Kanakarajan of the Google Map Maker team said in a blog post Monday.

Google suspended the service in May after a rash of unwanted edits. In one prominent case, a prankster drew the Android mascot urinating on the Apple logo. Google turned off user moderation and started reviewing edits manually itself, but that caused a huge backlog and eventually it suspended Map Maker altogether.

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