Google says it has kicked two unnamed contractors off its projects after OpenStreetMap alleged that someone working for the company had vandalised the free map service.

A Google spokeswoman said: "The two people who made these changes were contractors acting on their own behalf while on the Google network. They are no longer working on Google projects."

That statement came hours after OSM accused Mountain View of "moving and abusing" the not-for-profit organisation's data. However, the OSM's initial blog post shedding light on the alleged abuse of its mapping system came under fire from a corner of OSM's own community.

Tom Hughes, an OSM sysadmin, complained about the org's decision to go public with its claims that compared the map nobbling to Mocality's run in with Google.

Late on Tuesday, the OSM blog post carrying the original allegation against Google was updated by the group's founder Steve Coast. He defended the org's decision to go public with its claim, despite withholding evidence that might have helped back up that allegation.

Coast, who has been talking to Google directly about the issue, also shared a bit more information on the blog post, included what he described as evidence of "malicious data". ®