In 2005, India’s President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam raised significant concern about Google Earth displaying India’s “sensitive sites” and “key facilities; claiming the images could be used by terrorists and other extremists.
Is Google drawing more attention to these sites?

A Sunday report in The Times of India states: After much discussion, the Government of India and Google have finally reached an agreement; Google has agreed to distort areas on the Google Earth map that contain these sensitive sites.

India’s government will be sending Google a list of areas that they consider to be key facilities. Various methods will be used to distort these images such as showing these locations in 25-50 meters per pixel, fizzing and blurring the images, and even fabricating buildings ex nihilo; they will be placing buildings where there is none, and removing buildings where there is some.

Many other areas around the world have been altered in Google Earth by government agencies to keep people from viewing government and military facilities.  

This has, in fact, drawn more attention to India on Google earth. With people scouring the maps looking for these “key” locations, these pictures are flying around the Internet faster than a pseudo-nude image of Britney Spears. Just do a search on Images.Google.com and see for yourself. (not on Britney)

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Entry was posted on Monday, February 5th, 2007 at 4:34 pm under Google.

Read more entries by George Gardner.
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