Google bends over again

Now they’ve agreed to blur and manipulate images in Google Earth of any buildings the Indian government deems strategic. If the piece is accurate, what really strikes me as troublesome is that they’ll “distort building plans by adding structures where none existed”, and that they’ll agree with whatever the government says needs to be “camouflaged”.

I understand governments getting uneasy about the amount of detail criminals may be able to gather from something like Google Earth. But to add “structures where none existed” and to accept requests without discussing its merits – I’m eagerly waiting for Brazilians to demand such action on Av. Paulista’s or Rio’s beaches’ images – should detract from the service’s usefulness and reliability. And it sure as hell does nothing to improve Google’s problematic public image.

Talking about Google, Mark Cuban continues his attack on their video services, saying they’re playing dumb when saying they can’t filter the upload of copyrighted content. He says if that were so, they’d also be incapable of filtering pornographic content, when in fact you’d be hard pressed to find porn on Google Video or YouTube. He’s also calling on users to try and upload porn to see what happens.