First, take a look at this location on Google maps. You’ll be zoomed in in the northeast part of Pakistan. At the middle of that part of the map, you’ll see something like this image:
Was this done by someone on the Google Maps team? Is it possible it was done by someone outside of Google?
As it turns out, this is indeed a prank, done with Google Mapmaker. The result is an image hosted on google.com (check the URL in the above link). Thanks to Doney den Ouden for the insight.
Interested in making your own version? Here’s the edit page for this one. [HT @varunorcv]
Someone abused the mapmaker tool, and Google was negligent in filtering the abuse. Zoom out a little and look right/east, there’s a note to Google from the abusers.
CWE–can you link to a screen shot of the note? Can’t see it.
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.5006785,73.1272295,17z
See it now–thanks. Didn’t know it was in the lake.
I think your headline is misleading, given that Google is not responsible for this. Sorry to say – but it looks like a Business Insider headline.
Clever folks. But wrong of Dave to pin this on Google in the headline.
Absolutely. I changed the headline and updated the post. For the record, I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Still interesting, but mea culpa.
This is exactly the level of maturity and taste I’m used to from Google fans.
Appreciate this.
Respect.
Like Calvin stickers on a truck … classy.
This abuse was supposedly not possible because edits had to be approved by elevated users. Obviously that system isn’t working. What else in Google Maps is completely inaccurate?
I guess it’s been removed. I see no image now.
lol
What did the note say? Any chance someone snagged a screenshot?
The street I lived on last was wrong. And it was labelled with the wrong city. It’s been corrected since I last checked it, so I’ll be generous and say it was fixed between 2012 and 2014.
Still, that’s most of a decade wrong on something as basic as what city a street is in. And it shouldn’t’ve been a challenge — the boundaries between the cities is a straight north/south line.
The problem with Apple Maps is there isn’t a lot of detail. The problem with Google Maps is the detail is very often wrong.