Google is being accused of manipulating satellite images of Sydney, as they prepare to host over 21 world leaders in the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit, where U.S. President George Bush plans to attend in September.

The Sydney Morning Herald has pointed out that much of Sydney’s city centre, as it appears on Google Maps Australia and Google Earth, has been fuzzed out.

Google has been known to modify maps for governmental security issues. Earlier this year, Google agreed to distort areas on the Google Earth map that contained sensitive areas of India.

Various methods were used to distort images such as fizzing and blurring images, fabricating and removing buildings, and only showing locations in 25-50 meter per pixel resolution, which is what Google is being accused of doing with Sydney.

Prior to Sydney’s big event, Google Maps Australia could zoom in to areas as close as 25 meters, producing crystal clear images. Currently, the maps are blurry when viewed at 300 meters.

Google does admit that the satellite images were downgraded, but claims it was a result of a “commercial issue” with a supplier. Many have accused Google of answering requests, from Sydney officials, to purposely downgrade the images in an effort to discourage terrorist attacks.

The Sydney Morning Herald considers that Google has replaced the once available high-resolution satellite images with older, low-quality images of Sydney.

“This has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with APEC,” a spokesman for Google Australia, Rob Shilkin, told the Sydney Morning Herald. “We’re re-sourcing our imagery for parts of Sydney as a result of a commercial issue with one of our suppliers, so some of the highest-res images have been temporarily replaced.”

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Entry was posted on Monday, August 13th, 2007 at 3:12 pm under Google.

Read more entries by George Gardner.
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