AutoNavi has responded to the rumors surrounding the "Mine Sweeping List", announcing the launch of "Mine Avoidance Guide 1.0", which is a new feature for its Street Scanning List.

On September 10, Gaode Street Scanning List officially released "Avoid Pitfalls Guide 1.0". In response to the previous rumor circulating outside that the "Mine Sweeping List" is a list of bad merchants on the blacklist, the product launch statement clarifies the public's misunderstanding.

This function can conduct spatio-temporal deduction on users' travel plans or strategies, and help users predict travel experience risks such as wasted trips, traffic jams and schedule delays in advance from 15 dimensions including business hours, trip rhythm, parking reminders and crowding prediction.

Prior to this official announcement, it was rumored on multiple social platforms that Gaode was conducting internal tests on the "Mine Sweeping List", and the product function was described as categorizing restaurants, scenic spots, parking lots, hotels, etc. into negative lists such as queuing avoidance, experience avoidance, and hygiene avoidance based on user evaluations from dimensions such as queuing, hygiene, and service experience. Many netizens even expected the platform to launch an independent negative list to directly mark merchants with problems.

The reason why the online rumor of the "Mine Sweeping List" spread rapidly is that there has long been information asymmetry in local life consumption. Consumers are easily attracted by the marketing of internet-famous stores, but after arriving at the stores, they will encounter problems such as excessive marketing, long queues, temporary store closures, and parking difficulties, and the market has strong demand for "pit avoidance tools". However, a fixed negative blacklist of merchants will involve multiple problems such as merchant reputation, information authenticity verification, and data compliance. Once a misjudgment occurs, it will easily lead to merchant complaints and legal disputes.

The product launched by Gaode this time chooses to replace the merchant blacklist with trip early warnings to meet users' demand for avoiding pitfalls. From the perspective of the officially released product form, the Avoid Pitfalls Guide is an interactive AI travel assistant rather than a static list. This function is not directly displayed on the map page, nor does it put permanent negative labels on merchants. All risk reminders are dynamically generated around the trip scenario. For the same location, the risk judgment given by the system will change in real time with passenger flow, road conditions and business status on different dates and different time periods.

On September 10, a reporter from Jiemian News logged into Gaode to test this function in person. First, you need to update the Gaode Map App to the latest version, find the AI conversation entrance on the home page, submit the travel plan directly. After in-depth thinking, the AI will verify the business hours of the destination, estimate the congestion level, evaluate the parking conditions, predict the travel time conflict, identify scenario risks that are likely to cause a "wasted trip" such as store closure, long queue, and traffic delay, so as to provide reference for users to adjust their travel plans.

For example, in response to the reporter's question "What do I need to avoid when eating around Beijing's China World Trade Center at noon", Gaode replied that there are quite a lot of overall dining options in this area at noon, but pointed out that several restaurants have extremely long queues during meal hours, and you need to avoid them if you want to eat quickly at noon; the signature dish of one restaurant will not be served until 2 p.m., so you may not be able to eat it if you go at noon; one restaurant has two stalls, don't go to the wrong stall if you want to eat the characteristic snacks in the store; in addition, several restaurants suitable for noon dining are recommended.

Gaode Street Scanning List was initially launched in September 2025, generating a positive list based on real user behavior data such as navigation, visits and collections.

At the 2026 Gaode Street Scanning List launch conference this January, Guo Ning, CEO of Gaode, disclosed data: the monthly active user scale of Gaode App is close to 996 million, the number of users of the Street Scanning List has exceeded 660 million, and it has attracted a total of 860,000 merchants to settle in, covering many cities at home and abroad.

In August this year, Gaode released the annual list of "Gaode Street Scanning List 2026", and a total of 35,170 merchants from 371 cities across the country were on the list. The data shows that as of August 12 this year, the order volume of 5,115 merchants on the Fireworks Small Shop List in 2025 increased by 424% year-on-year, while the order volume of merchants on the Top Champion List in the same period increased by 159% year-on-year.

Gaode is a digital map and location service provider under the Alibaba Group. Relying on its self-developed map database and real-time traffic computing power, Gaode initially took in-vehicle navigation and mobile terminal route planning as its core business, and gradually expanded into a one-stop travel platform covering driving, public transport, cycling, aggregated ride-hailing, and local life at destinations. At the same time, it provides basic location capabilities for hundreds of thousands of external applications through the open platform.

In recent years, Gaode has continued to promote the implementation of spatial intelligence, and the Street Scanning List is a new product attempt launched for destination decision-making.

This article is from "Jiemian News", author: Shen Xiaoge, published with authorization by 36Kr.