-------- 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