[Novalug] [OT] Google takes heat for using pre-Katrina imagery

[Thomas R. Corbin]

On Sunday, 01 April 2007 02:15 pm, Alan McConnell escreveu:
> On Sun, Apr 01, 2007 at 12:33:43PM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> > On Sat, Mar 31, 2007 at 08:29:05PM -0400, Alan McConnell wrote:
> > >	Pete, you are very ready to jump on the Congress for getting
> > >	after Google.  But I would first ask: why did Google switch
> > >	from a depiction of the present state of affairs -- which AFAIK
> > >	continues shamefully bad -- to a pre-Katrina depiction.
> >
> > Why should we ask that?
>
> 	<LOL>  Because it takes a certain amount of political programming
> 	for such an obvious question not to spring to mind.
>
> > More importantly, where is congress' constitutional authority
> > to question a private business about what content it chooses to
> > display on a free web site?
>
> 	We all have a copy of the Constitution, right?  Check
> 	Article I, often subtitled, Powers of the Congress.  A hint
> 	as to the Section: its number is a power of the only even
> 	prime.
>
> 	Perhaps a more relevant question is: why should Congress
> 	take a look at what Google is doing?  my answer to this --
> 	and I give it sadly -- is that we are in a new era of
> 	privatisation.  Our government is privatising all kinds
> 	of things; we are renting out our highways, renting out
> 	the care and feeding of our military forces, etc etc.
> 	Do you(Mike and others) not know that many of our
> 	governmental functions depend on information about
> 	where things are?  and AFAIK the government has not set
> 	up an online agency with capabilities similar to those
> 	of Mapquest and Googlemap.

	That doesn't mean that there is a formal relationship between the gov't and 
Google, nor that Google has any special responsibility to the gov't or the 
people of the US becuase the gov't hasn't set up this location service you 
say that we need.

>
> 	Should the government privatize?  the present "conservative"
> 	philosophy is: Yes!  the Private Sector is much more able
> 	than the government.    But if we are
> 	going to let the Private Sector do things essential to
> 	government activity, the government, especially the Congress,
> 	had better exercise due oversight over said private sector.

	Google was not privatized out of the gov't, they started on their own, and 
thus does not deserve any special oversight from Congress.

	Congress can oversee the USGS all they want.  Leave google alone.

>
> > >	So let's find out first who leaned on Google to airbrush history.

	Someone has already suggested the the post-katrina images were the flooded 
NOLA area and thus not useful to Google's users.  I don't know, I didn't see 
them.

> >
> > And why on earth, other than rampant paranoia, would you believe that
> > somebody did that?
>
> 	Well, Mike, you present for us your theory about why Google
> 	should display the present devastation in New Orleans, and then
> 	recall this display to show how New Orleans used to be.  Is
> 	your theory that someone at Google did this on their own
> 	recognizance(like e.g.  Douglas Feith doctored up the intelligence
> 	on Iraqi WMD on his own)?

	He didn't.

>
> 	As for paranoia, I plead guilty.  Paranoia on the part of
> 	private citizens is, these days, the citizen's highest duty.
> 	If anyone reading this isn't paranoiac, then they are in a
> 	cocoon somewhere.
>
> > neighborhood are years old), how they decide which to use (weighting age
> > against resolution), whether it is at all plausible that a human makes a
> > decision about every square foot of coverage (no, it's not--it must be
> > automated), and whether it's reasonble to expect that the people writing
> > the automation software special case things based on potential
> > congressional stupidity (it's not).
>
> 	I don't know what this is all about.  If you don't think New
> 	Orleans is a "special case", that's your right.  Most people
> 	view New Orleans as the preeminent natural disaster -- in terms
> 	of property damage, lives shattered, etc -- that the U.S. has
> 	been hit with in at least the last several decades.

	It may be the worst disaster, but that doesn't mean that google needs to do 
anything special for NOLA.


>
> Caveat:  I personally do not know New Orleans; I was there once for a
> conference many decades ago.  And I am certainly not familiar with
> what Google has done.  But a billion-dollar enterprise like Google,
> in depicting the New Orleans disaster, should certainly make every
> effort to make what it is depicting as accurate as possible.  Does
> anyone quarrel with that statement?  And if Google is portraying

	Yes, I quarrel with the statement "[google] should make every effort to make 
what it is depicting as accurate as possible".  Google should do what they 
can to give their customers the best service they can and still make a 
profit.   If that means that their data is less than up to date or accurate, 
then so be it.   I get google maps w/o paying any money for it and am happy 
enough with it so far.

	W/o knowing any facts, I am unwilling to assume that some nefarious plot was 
in effect to "airbrush history".   Nor do I believe that Congress is 
necessarily doing the right thing in investigating.   Congress wastes too 
much money on investigating things that they have no business investigating.

	If I am wrong and there was a nefarious plot, I'd be willing to condem google 
or the nefarious plotter.  But until then, I'd just rather assume that 
everyone involved had the best intentions.

> the remnants of a once great American city as it was before the
> disaster struck, I'd say: damn right I want Congress to complain.
> And the rest of us, the people who elect the Congress, should too.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Alan