Google Using Pre-Katrina Imagery on Google Maps

Thirdsin writes "CNN reports that images of lands devastated by Hurricane Katrina have been replaced on Google's map service with pre-Hurricane Katrina imagery. Now a subcommittee from The House Committee on Science and Technology has asked CEO Eric Schmidt for Google's motivation behind the imagery switch. '[Congressional subcommittee chair Brad] Miller asked Google to brief his staff by April 6 on who made the decision to replace the imagery with pre-Katrina images, and to disclose if Google was contacted by the city, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Geological Survey or any other government entity about changing the imagery. "To use older, pre-Katrina imagery when more recent images are available without some explanation as to why appears to be fundamentally dishonest," Miller said.' It is worth pointing out that images from Google Earth have not been changed."

Comments

Dependency on Google

[DoofusOfDeath]

My guess is that one reason the senator cares is that his staff rely on Google to get their job done. It's interesting to see that throughout the federal government, workers are becoming dependent on various Google information services despite the fact that the govt. has put a lot of effort into building its own mapping services .

I wonder what other parts of government are dependent on Google's functionality, and what would happen if Google was interrupted.