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Google Earth Demanded to Remove Dangerous Pictures

That might be used in terrorist attacks

By Bogdan Popa, Security and Search Engines Editor

11th of June 2007, 17:06 GMT

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New York state lawmaker Michael Gianaris made a public demand to the Mountain View company to remove sensitive pictures from the Google Earth application because the risk of terrorist attacks is increasing. The New York official sustained that the authorities should partner with the search giant to remove secret locations from the mapping tool because the application is a valuable source

of information for reaching malicious goals. The best example is represented by the recent terrorist attempt from the JFK International Airport when several terrorists were arrested before anything dangerous to happen. However, they sustained they managed to obtain important information using Google Earth, the search giant's mapping tool.

At that time, the Mountain View company defended itself by sustaining that the details can be obtained with ease from any other source as its rival firms are offering similar solutions able to show valuable information. "Google takes security concerns very seriously, and is always willing to discuss them with public agencies and officials," the company's official said according to BigMouthMedia.

In the past, there were several cases when Google Earth was used as a malicious tool and, in most of them, the parent company cooperated with the authorities to censor the pictures. For example, it was reported that terrorists were using Google Earth to organize attacks against the UK troops located in Basra. At that time, the search giant removed the pictures and replaced them with older ones captured before the departure of the army in the area.

However, there were some cases when Google was accused of censorship, as the authorities didn't require the removal of the pictures. In New Orleans, Google Earth replaced the Katrina photos with older ones, attracting users' criticism for refusing to show the truth. Google sustained the imagery was available a long time after the hurricane invaded the city, in a move meant to help the rescuers find victims and other affected residents.

TAGS:

google | earth | terrorist | photo

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