The maps that we see today more or less paints an accurate picture of the world we live in. However, there are some subtleties in the maps, where there are some regions that are currently being disputed, where several different countries might lay claim to a particular location.However, it seems that Google could be looking to try and sort that confusion out in Google Maps with a political border feature. According to a report from The Washington Post, this change will make it so that depending on who is viewing the map and where they are viewing it from, it could show something different from everyone else.
According to Ethan Russell, the director of product management for Google Maps, “We remain neutral on issues of disputed regions and borders, and make every effort to objectively display the dispute in our maps using a dashed gray border line. In countries where we have local versions of Google Maps, we follow local legislation when displaying names and borders.”
This isn’t the first time Google has adjusted its maps due to region disputes. For example with the map of Crimea, everyone else around the world views it as neither belonging to Russia or Ukraine, but over in Russia, Crimea is marked as being part of the country. The recent changes basically sounds like Google is expanding on it to cover more disputed regions.
Filed in . Read more about Google and Google Maps. Source: phonearena