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Google Corrects Katrina Image Switch

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

April 2, 2007, 4:52 PM

After a barrage of negative publicity surrounding its decision to replace aerial images of areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina with pre-storm photos, Google has switched the images back.

Missing however is any explanation why the images were modified in the first place, other than to say that the pre-storm images provided much higher-resolution than those post-Katrina.

The move even caught the eye of Congress, with Democratic House Science Oversight Subcommittee chair Brad Miller of North Carolina accusing the company of "airbrushing history." Miller has also asked Google in a letter demanding an explanation why the images were changed, and if somebody asked them to be modified.

"Make no mistake, this wasn't any effort on our part to rewrite history," Google Maps director John Hanke said. "But it looks like this April Fool's joke was on us." Hanke said the company expedited getting new high-resolution images of the area, which were available as of Sunday night.

A spokesperson for Miller's office said that the Congressman still expects a response regardless of Google's actions to remedy the situation. The Mountain View, Calif. company was expecting to send a reply sometime Monday.

It did highlight that the changes were made in September of last year. "Given that the changes that affected New Orleans happened many months ago, we were a bit surprised by some of these recent comments," Hanke added.

He also said that the goal of the image change was to provide the best quality aerial images possible.

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By dhjdhj

posted Apr 3, 2007 - 10:29 PM

I'm VERY confused by this claim --- how was Google's reversion to pre-Katrina photos beneficial to the Democrats?

--->Come on folks, Google has shown itself to be a tool of the Democrat party. Al Gore is on the board of Google. They will do whatever the Democrats ask of them.

Score: 0

By geekdoc

edited Apr 4, 2007 - 1:35 PM

thats why i use search_dot_com. google news and google search results are highly biased...

Score: 0

By Avion Airplane

posted Apr 3, 2007 - 12:55 PM

my house is gone !?

Score: 0

By uberfly

posted Apr 3, 2007 - 1:26 AM

Let's not forget about Katrina by God!!! Of course you should all just forget about 9-11. That event doesn't quite match up with our Democrat agenda...

Score: 0

By Fred_Mac

edited Apr 3, 2007 - 9:01 AM

What if Google replaced current maps of New York City with old ones that still showed the Twin Towers?

Score: 0

By pierwolf1

posted Apr 3, 2007 - 1:22 PM

Who gives a crap?!?! Will it change your life?

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

posted Apr 3, 2007 - 10:31 AM

The old Wembley stadium?

/cheeky

Score: 0

By tnculp

posted Apr 2, 2007 - 11:38 PM

Come on folks, Google has shown itself to be a tool of the Democrat party. Al Gore is on the board of Google. They will do whatever the Democrats ask of them.

Score: 0

By pickchevy

posted Apr 4, 2007 - 8:34 AM

It's amazing how many "new" members betanews has when the conversation gets political. ;o/

Score: 0

By mannaggia

posted Apr 3, 2007 - 9:31 AM

Yep - look at the political contributions of the head honchos at Google. They give hundreds of thousands to the Democrat party.

It's funny - the liberals want the government to keep their hands off the Internet, unless it's government liberals wanting to do it. Then it's just spiffy.

Score: 0

By tnculp

posted Apr 2, 2007 - 11:38 PM

Come on folks, Google has shown itself to be a tool of the Democrat party. Al Gore is on the board of Google. They will do whatever the Democrats ask of them.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Apr 2, 2007 - 11:09 PM

Google makes no guarantees.

Google is under no obligation to anyone regarding it's maps or Google Earth Progam, including the accuracy or availability of either.

Brad Miller needs a day-job.

Oh, wait... :/

Score: 0

By PC_Fool

posted Apr 3, 2007 - 4:22 PM

google is the best!

google outdoes the microshaft terraserver easily!

i love brad miller and i need a day job.

oh, wait... i'm the stupid... :/

Score: 0

By morriscox

posted Apr 4, 2007 - 11:00 AM

Yes, PC_Fool, you are the stupid. You come across like a 13 year old, while PC_Tool comes across like an adult. How about you wait 5 years before posting, or better yet, 8 years?

Score: 0

By Hollywood__

posted Apr 2, 2007 - 10:20 PM

If I was Google I'd tell the whole world to **** off and mind your own business.

Score: 0

By Bogunch

posted Apr 2, 2007 - 9:36 PM

And what is Brad Miller's e-mail address so we can all tell him what an idiot he is? I guess that is obvious - he's a politician!!

Score: 0

By PostDeals

posted Apr 2, 2007 - 8:38 PM

Congress doesn't pay for the pictures, its all on Google's tab they can do whatever they want.

Read this Congressman: http://maps.google.com/help/terms_maps.html

They got more things to worry about like border security and rebuilding New Orleans not haggle over images.

Score: 0

By KingMotley

posted Apr 2, 2007 - 8:24 PM

Google to Congress: "Because we wanted to"

Score: 0

By drumcat

posted Apr 3, 2007 - 2:09 AM

Google to Congress: "Because you wouldn't."

Score: 0

By morriscox

posted Apr 4, 2007 - 11:02 AM

Google to Congress: "Because it was for April Fools and you obviously need to use our search engine to discover what April Fools is about."

Score: 0

By Neoprimal

posted Apr 3, 2007 - 10:36 PM

LOL

Score: 0

By prndll

posted Apr 2, 2007 - 8:12 PM

I would agree that they have better things to worry about. It's not like images from google are in real time anyway. But, even if they were, taking things to such a degree is still ridiculous.

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

posted Apr 2, 2007 - 6:37 PM

Perhaps Google should just remove New Orleans and have an 'under construction' sign where it is, as I'm fairly sure they have the right to put whatever bloody pictures they want up there, be it pre or post hurricane. Perhaps a Google employee showing them the finger.
They're giving you a service, and trying to give you the best quality images of everywhere. Perhaps this guy should shell out and buy all the shots of New Orleans post hurricane and put them up himself.

Please note I do feel immensely sorry for the people that live there and have lost everything. I hope they're rebuilding their lives, but I'm sure Google didn't actually mean to rid the history books of it all.

Score: 0

By drumcat

posted Apr 2, 2007 - 6:54 PM

I didn't know Google was the history police in the first place...

Score: 0

By pierwolf1

posted Apr 2, 2007 - 6:17 PM

Who the heck does this guy think he is? Google should put images of crop-circles where downtown New Orleans is and tell 'someone' to go pee into the wind.

Score: 0

By Program86

posted Apr 2, 2007 - 5:43 PM

Nevermind, the political injustice of the whole thing... *sarcasm police*

Score: 0

By ir0nw0lf

posted Apr 2, 2007 - 5:20 PM

Congress, don't you have more important things to do, like get our troops out of Iraq!? I can very much believe that this issue would cause a stir up there, seems to be rather easy to divert their [Congress'] attention these days.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Apr 2, 2007 - 11:05 PM

Since when does congress make military command decisions?

Score: 0

By Sexbarril

posted Apr 3, 2007 - 5:48 AM

Since after Vietnam War.

Congress has to declare war, i believe thats a command deicision.

Latz, SB

Score: 0

By mannaggia

posted Apr 3, 2007 - 9:29 AM

Congress has always had to "declare war" since the Constitution was written, not just "since after Vietnam War" (which was not declared).

Congress can also authorize military action, as they did in Iraq. Once they do that, it should be left up to the Commander-in-Chief and the Generals and Admirals to prosecute that action.

Not General Pelosi and Admiral Reid and Sergeant Murtha.

Score: 0

By Fred_Mac

posted Apr 4, 2007 - 2:13 AM

The problem is that every time the generals disagree with Dubya he fires them or forces them to retire and then does what he wanted to do in the first place.

Bush saying he takes the advice of his generals is a complete lie ... which is the one thing he is good at!

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Apr 4, 2007 - 9:10 AM

lmao...

Did you forget that he was pressured several times by the dems to fire them?

Of course, they immediately forget that inconvenient fact and tell the lemmings he did it because they didn't agree with him.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Apr 3, 2007 - 1:23 PM

Exactly.

Score: 0

By DesertDave

edited Apr 3, 2007 - 7:40 AM

Actually, Congress 'doesn't' have to declare war. They haven't for the actions taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan now.

Score: 0

By drumcat

posted Apr 2, 2007 - 5:05 PM

Apparently Google is more important to US History than is Congress. Nice.

Score: 0

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