-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Online Maps: Everyman Offers New Directions
Date:   Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:38:10 -0500
From:   Joel Kovarsky <[log in to unmask]>
To:     Maps, Air Photo & Geospatial Systems Forum <[log in to unmask]>



This was in this morning's New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/technology/internet/17maps.html?_r=1&hp.
Towards the end of the article:

   Maps are political, of course, and community-edited maps can set off
   conflicts. When Mr. Ahmad tried to work on the part of Kashmir that
   is administered by Pakistan, he found that Map Maker wouldn’t allow
   it. He said his contributions were finally accepted by the Map Maker
   team, which is led by engineers based in India, but only after a
   long e-mail exchange.

   At his request, Google is now preventing further changes to the
   region, after people in India tried to make it part of their
   country, Mr. Ahmad said. “Whenever you have a Pakistani and an
   Indian doing something together, there is a political discussion or
   dispute.”

   A Google spokeswoman, Elaine Filadelfo, said Google sometimes
   blocked changes to contentious areas “with an eye to avoiding
   back-and-forth editing.”


Joel Kovarsky