Let me quote from two different replies on this thread: > In 1995, Microsoft had to remove timezone markings from the world map shown > in the time settings in Windows because India said it was inaccurate -- > making it much less useful for everyone.
and > And as an aside, the Google Maps vs Google Earth issue is one of dynamic > content vs fixed content. Google Maps being a web-based and server-based > tool can be commanded rather trivially to show different content to > visitors from different IPs. While it is much harder to do so on a download > like Google Earth which will probably need to look the same to all viewers > worldwide - much like a Nat Geo atlas. In both cases the excuse offered is that some technical disability on the part of the software service provider is the reason for fiddling with facts and pissing off a minority of people in the world (like a billion Indians) and that the software/service providers themselves (like Microsoft or Google) cannot be blamed. This lame excuse is akin to a rapist saying that he is unable to prevent himself from ravishing the odd woman but he needs to be given credit for the fact that he leaves most women untouched. The few raped women need to sit back an accept that it was done both due to a technical failure of self control as well as in the larger interests of women in the world. Sorry. It's no good. You know how India (and perhaps China) might handle these things? They will arrest the head of the local bureau and provoke a crisis. Google will then thrash its virtual arms and legs about like it is doing now with China and after that some feature will have to be tweaked. If Google wants to enter the world of geopolitics - that is fine. Osama bin Laden has also done that. But they must prepare for the consequences. shiv
