It may be time to break out the whitewash, at least if you're Google, Inc.
The Associated Press recently reported that Google Maps has replaced its most recent images of New Orleans with satellite photos taken before Hurricane Katrina devastated the city more than a year ago.
The news of the apparent switch has left many in the city stunned and angry.
Though New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin says there's no conspiracy, that the city did not encourage Google to remove the "rebuilding" images in order to promote tourism, the question must be asked: Were Google's intentions pure?
If not, what's next?
Could we soon look at New York and see images of the city pre-September 11? Many movies since September 11 have gone to great lengths to remove imagery of the Twin Towers, so what's to stop Google Maps from rewriting history by putting them back in?
Better yet, we should be asking ourselves why Google would think history needs to be messed with at all.
New Orleans was devastated by Katrina. The world knows it; it's been ingrained in our consciousness. So what is to be gained by eliminating the images of people rebuilding the city?
Google spokesman Chikai Ohazama told the AP that the pre-Katrina images were the best it has to offer. "Numerous factors decide what goes into the databases," he said, "everything from resolution to quality, to when the actual imagery was acquired."
It's difficult to believe, however, that there's any good reason for Google to have jumped back 18 months to highlight a New Orleans that no longer exists.
Flashing back to photos of a city that existed in August 2005 isn't going to boost tourism for the city in April 2007. So if the city applied pressure to Google to "backdate" its imagery they did so under a misguided and embarrassing plan.
And if Google Earth is looking to truly be "the ultimate research, presentation and collaboration tool for location-specific information," as it implies on their Web site, what is accomplished by visually traveling back in time and providing the world with images of a world that does not exist?
Last week the Daily News exposed flaws in the Wikipedia database, which students frequently use for class work. Wikipedia, however, is controlled by a non-profit organization and a network of volunteer contributors who work to keep material up-to-date. Any flaws in their database are due to outright vandalism or mere ignorance on the part of contributors.
Google, however, is a multi-billion-dollar corporation attempting to control as much of the Internet pie as it can get its hands on. With Google Earth it has an opportunity to provide the world with a wealth of satellite imagery at the click of a mouse.
Instead it chooses to either cater to the whims of city governments hoping to boost tourism, or worse, it would rather direct surfers to the New Orleans that featured more "searchable monuments," a way to direct traffic.
Google Earth therefore creates the world Google wants us to see, the world that brings more hits and looks prettier and more palatable to the consumer.
That, my friends, is much worse than any threat Wikipedia imposes.
Write to Jonathan at jonathansanders@justice.com
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