Google Agrees to Blur Military Installations in Google Earth

By Matthew Paulson, published Feb 14, 2007
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When Google Earth was first created by Keyhole Inc, it lived in relative obscurity as an interesting but expensive tool. When Google bought out the company, they made the software free for the masses to use. Over time the feature set improved and the number of users of the software increased exponentially. Many power users were doing some very interesting this with the software, such as finding previously unknown ruins of ancient civilizations, and scouting out areas which some people might not want them to see. It was not long before many governments started to question Google Earth's unabridged satellite imagery.

The country of India had some particular issue with Google Earth. India was upset that some sensitive establishments of the Indian government could be seen clearly and without distortion. The country thought this was a threat to their national interest, and it makes sense that organizations that did not have India's best interest in mind could use the data to scout out installations. India opened a discussion with Google to see what could be done to rectify their situation.

Officials from India's ministry of science and technology met with representatives from Google Earth and have come to an agreement which makes both organizations happy. They came to a decision that they would carefully camouflage sensitive sites. The two groups believed that this would be a much better option than merely blacking out the sites, because that would draw attention to those sites.

Google Agrees to Blur Military Installations in Google Earth

A satellite image of the island of Samos off the cost of Greece in Google Earth

Credit: Google

Copyright: Google

Takeaways
  • Google Earth offers unmitigated imagery of the surface of the entire world.
  • Some governments questioned whether showing sensitive military sites in the open was the proper thing to do.
  • Google Earth and India reached an agreement to mask certain sensitive sites.
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