Google censorship - stupid poor citizens shouldn't see!

[K. A. Pital]

Script: before - after.


That is Miller's (chief of Gazprom) "dacha" (if you could call a mansion the size, style and cost of a mini-Hermitage, essentially a modern palace, a "dacha" anyhow). Fully censored by Google, plainly removed from existence - so that stupid Russians don't see it.

You can see photos of the shit here, and quite certainly I can say that's Marie Antoinette reincarnated:
http://fishki.net/comment.php?id=60416

Google sometimes removes military action territories, but this? What are these rich fucktards afraid of?

[[R_H]]

Wow, that's one big villa. It wouldn't happen to be his primary residence, would it?

[Siege]

Is that a house? God, that's obscene.

[Kane Starkiller]

What are the coordinates of the dacha and is it certain that the image "before" is taken from google maps? I can see toolbars in the second image but not in the first one. Google maps (or Google Earth) isn't always up to date and can lag years behind the current situation.

[Big Orange]

Look at the half finished but still hulking McMansions to the North of the pocket sized palace, which seem more suited California than the Steppes.

[K. A. Pital]

The place is here, and the image is up to date.

The first image is what it used to look like prior to the censorship.

During July 2009, points, markers and descriptions of "Millergof" were deleted from Wikimapia by hired jacks from St. Petersburg, and there was a real feud with deletions/editing/etc.Also, the new style of google zoom bars is a rather new design - it wasn't there before, when I used the Maps service.

Gazprom also apparently paid for removal on other web satellite imaging services, failing to do it only on some of the more obscure ones which still utilize earlier satellite imagery with the enormous construction works.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I always thought that Google's own mantra was a sham. All this nonsense about "doing altruistic things with technology" is really a big lie. I think eventually, there ought to be laws regulating how search engines etc. control the flow of information really. But I fear that will never happen thanks to rich lobbies.

[Big Orange]

Google is a business primarily interested in making money and not upsetting powerful rivals and clients. Gazprom's chairman pulling strings in Google to cover up the construction of a tacky residency is still not quite as scary as Semion Mogilevich pulling strings in the British SIS and the French DGSE. That Russian mansion, while resembling an overdecorated wedding cake, is not quite as truly monstrous as London's abominable Toprak Mansion.

[Darth Wong]

Why would anyone be shocked or disillusioned by the fact that Google is out to make money? They do plenty of advertising as anyone can see. Is anyone truly so naive that he doesn't understand this?

[Eleas]

Why would anyone be shocked or disillusioned by the fact that Google is out to make money? They do plenty of advertising as anyone can see. Is anyone truly so naive that he doesn't understand this?

I agree that it's naïve not to expect Google to look to their profits. It's quite another thing to be this blatant about it, because it truly is one slippery slope of a precedent; if Google can simply be paid to doctor what they know is correct, then that means they no longer even pay lip service to any sort of public responsibility. It shows Google feels no need to even keep up the illusion of impartiality any longer, and I for one am unsettled by that.

[Darth Wong]

"Impartiality"? What the fuck are you talking about? Since when did Google claim to be impartial? They put their advertised links right at the top of their search results page.

[Coyote]

Google is, after all, a private organization. They aren't required to disclose everything unless they are issued a subpoena, in which case there has to be reason to suspect they are hiding something to further some sort of criminal enterprise. Rich people may want their locations obscured or erased and say that it is for "security" (their own).

If Google was government run, you could accuse them of favoring the upper class and sue them for disclosure (depending on what country you lived in). It's an unfortunate fact of life-- just like the Boy Scouts of America are free to discriminate against gays because they are a private organization, so long as they are willing to forgo government funding to do it.*

But that does raise a question-- doesn't Google rely on US military/NASA satellites to do its searches? Could that bring charges of the US government being compliant with hiding information? Would there even be a case? Could someone file a FOIA case and tell the government to tell Google to disclose all (with the established exception of national security sites)?





*Insert whatever statement you want about how libertarians insist that private companies will be so, sooo much better at protecting people's rights that stinky ol' governments.

[Eleas]

"Impartiality"? What the fuck are you talking about? Since when did Google claim to be impartial? They put their advertised links right at the top of their search results page.

Pardon, I may have been unclear. Ever since I woke up today my eyes won't focus properly and I feel dizzy. That said, I'll try to explain what I meant as opposed to what I said.

As for "impartiality," I didn't speak of Google's own explicit claims, but of what I feel to be the public perception of Google. Google as a company is seen as a business, but that's not the Google people use. The Google search engine today is like a phonebook, which means that by its ubiquity it bypasses people's critical faculties. To google something has become a synonym for looking it up, with not a moment's thought paid to whether the medium (Google) imposed any change to the information content.

Wikipedia has suffered a lot of abuse for their famous "everything goes" popularity-based stance on facts. I feel that so far, Google has managed to avoid a lot of that sort of scrutiny; moreover I feel Google intentionally projects an image of unobtrusiveness to exploit people's tendencies to trust their utilities and to allow them to forget that it's a service run by a company.

Does that make sense?

(EDIT: Specified the Google search engine for clarity.)

[phongn]

But that does raise a question-- doesn't Google rely on US military/NASA satellites to do its searches? Could that bring charges of the US government being compliant with hiding information? Would there even be a case? Could someone file a FOIA case and tell the government to tell Google to disclose all (with the established exception of national security sites)?

A lot of Google's imagery is privately sourced.

EDIT: The bottom of the page will usually tell you where the images are sourced from.

[PeZook]

It would've been a lot better from a PR perspective to just blank out the place and write "Image removed for reason X", rather than just reverting back to a pristine green field, though.

Has there been an official release from Google about their policy on photo removal/inclusion, anyway?

[Sea Skimmer]

Ever since Google introduced its latest version with ‘historical imagery’ as a feature they’ve been deleting shit left and right and trying to confuse people to this going on. Prior to that all they ever did was pixilated areas, like some French and Dutch military bases, rather then removing content. Pay them enough or bitch at them (if you are a government) and they’ll do anything you want.

[Uraniun235]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's at least one or two American citizens who have successfully lobbied Google to obscure imagery of their residences.

[Terralthra]

What I find interesting is that while the overhead map shows the green fields and trees, if one selects the "photos" link in the drop-down "More...", Google helpfully locates an up-to-date image of the dacha/palace right on top of where it says no such place exists.

[Sarevok]

So any alternatives for viewing pixelated / photoshopped locations ?

[phongn]

So any alternatives for viewing pixelated / photoshopped locations ?

You could try Terraserver, Bing Maps or NASA World Wind