Last week several bloggers noted a Guaridan story that terrorists in Gaza were using Google Earth to target locations in Israel.
So when I saw this item, I thought, “Oh good, Google has responded to the concerns.”
A tipster to Newsbusters shares the following info: A search of Google maps under “Israel” reveals a map that is completely devoid of any detail. Yet, neighboring Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and even Turkey all have cities and roads noted.
And indeed, if you click on the link, Israel is devoid of any details, unlike the surrounding countries. However, in the upper right hand corner you’ll see a box divided into three sections with links to Map, Satellite and Hybrid. If you choose the latter two you can get some details. but if you zoom in too close you get the following message “We are sorry but we don’t have at this zoom level for this region.” (Whoops, in other cases it looks like you can zoom in all the way.)
So it does appear that for some reason, Google is blocking some but not all detailed information on Israel.
However, at Seraphic Secret a commenter noted that Google Earth still has the detailed information that could be (and was) used by terrorists.
So I guess I was too quick to give Google credit. (Although perhaps Google has more control over the map than over the satellite imagery.) Apparently Google hasn’t addressed the problem of Google Earth.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
