Google blames US for Nicaragua's invasion of Costa Rica

[Emil]

Google has admitted to the boundary error that caused a dispute between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The search giant says the United States government is to blame for the inaccurate data.

"[A]fter a discussion with the data supplier for this particular border (the US Department of State), we determined that there was indeed an error in the compilation of the source data, by up to 2.7 kilometers," the company said in a statement. "The US Department of State has provided a corrected version and we are now working to update our maps." Google also goes on to give a little history of the region, but the real good news here is that the company is fixing the issue.

Earlier this week, we reported that former Nicaraguan military commander Eden Pastora blamed Google Maps for ordering his army to invade a portion of Costa Rica. The troops set up camp, took down a Costa Rican flag, raised the Nicaraguan flag, destroyed a protected forest, cleaned up a nearby river, and dumped the sediment in Costa Rican territory.

Like Bing Maps, the official maps used by both the Nicaraguan and Costa Rican governments show the border continuing on the right bank of the San Juan River all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Soon, Google Maps will do the same.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/41021-google-blames-us-for-nicaraguas-invasion-of-costa-rica.html

 

[thedrelle]

does this mean the US is going to get involved in this border dispute?

I find it amusing that the US is getting blamed for a military general taking advantage of what is essentially a 3rd party source of information. If its that easy to annex territory, why haven't we done it sooner? we could have half of Mexico and Canada in no time. if they complain, just show them google maps.

 

[lchu12]

Why does the state department have to supply the data?
Just sounds like Google trying to cover its own ***, by pointing the finger to the government.

I don't like the sound of the headline "Google blames US for Nicaragua's invasion of Costa Rica
", when it was the stupid Nicaraguan military commander who used Google map as a pretense for the action.

 

[OneArmedScissor]

"we could have half of Mexico and Canada in no time."

And we'd want those, why, exactly? Thank you for helping make Americans look so SMRAT to the rest of the world.

 

[Guest]

@ichu12

So if you bought a map from your US department to take your friends on a road trip and you ended up lost because the map was wrong, by your logic, you would be the person to blame for getting lost. Is that what you are saying, that a company or department should not be responsible for the information/product it is giving out?

Whatever mate.

Kel

 

[Chazz]

Guest said:
@ichu12

So if you bought a map from your US department to take your friends on a road trip and you ended up lost because the map was wrong, by your logic, you would be the person to blame for getting lost. Is that what you are saying, that a company or department should not be responsible for the information/product it is giving out?

Whatever mate.

Kel

No way is he saying that at all. If there is something wrong and you get lost you'll tell them and they'll fix it. What he is saying, and you should also, is under no circumstance should a government invade a place that is based on intel that isn't their own and most especially intel supplied by a public company thousands of miles away. Hell, I do more research buying a video card than they apparently did before mounting a invasion.

As for his google comment, google is making a business out of providing maps, the burden is on them to validate this. If me and my friends are in costa rica I can guarantee you that I'm not gonna go to the US DOS for my map information.

 

[sMILEY4ever]

I don't get why US is to blame. Google is the culprit.

 

[gruesomeA]

Does the author get a bonus for every Bing plug made?

 

[Guest]

Does anyone really believe the General? If I looked at my property on Google maps and it showed a boundary different from what I thought, that would prompt me to perhaps do further research. I would not go, "OMG!!!! Free propertyzes!!!" and build a shed on the property in question. If I were talking about the boundaries between countries, the level of care would be heightened that much more. Yet, this General thinks Google maps justifies grabbing land he knows is occupied and has long been claimed by Costa Rica?

Nonsense. It's a pretense for aggression.

 

[Guest]

To begin I wanna say that it wasn't my fault, just in case someone past me the ball.

 

[motrin]

i agree with sMILEY4ever. it seems like google is pulling an apple, by putting the blame somewhere else.

 

[hassaan]

Why is it that US is involved in every dispute / conflict?

 

[zenpanda]

I blame Nicaragua for not perform its own due diligence. To say the least, they did not research thoroughly the boundary issues, and I don't believe it would have been difficult to do. For example, how difficult is it to contact the appropriate department in the Costa Rican government who is responsible for maps.

 

[Ranger12]

gruesomea said:
Does the author get a bonus for every Bing plug made?

lol and when I read this article there was a ad for Bing between the article and the comments section....

 

[BlueDrake]

I pretty much see it like this.

Google blames US = Google can't be bothered to verify anything

Just blame someone else, it's best to do finger pointing. Why not actually check with each country, and see if maps actually match up? More work in the long term, but it makes things more accurate. So we don't have complete *****s at times, depending on what many deem as the best company ever.

Sad thing is I said that, while keeping a straight face.

 

[Kibaruk]

I'm most certain that they knew of this, but used Google as escape goat. No one can be THAT stupid... although people can always surprise you.

 

[compu4]

Didn't the commander know that something was amiss when he saw the Costa Rican Flag on the territory?

Also, why is bing's data accurate? From what source does microsoft get its data?

 

[grvalderrama]

Kibaruk said:
I'm most certain that they knew of this, but used Google as escape goat. No one can be THAT stupid... although people can always surprise you.

Certainly it wasn't a stupid move... Altought everbody think it is.

It seems that all Google's mistake are coming up these days. I wonder what's gonna say the blonde lady Marissa (oh, yes! I remember her name!) after this episode hehe! I'm going to send a request to Google for recheck the boarder line between Argentina and Chile, I'm sure Chile wants a piece of our cake! xD

 

[Guest]

we have a bing fanboy here.

the article is nonetheless a PR stunt to attack google. if i'm a general, you must know your territory. since a General position will likely to be old age, i dont think he uses google maps before. real maps are used before. so likely he knows that there is an error in google maps.

its a win-win for the general and bing for using a technological error to invade a territory and not using common sense. good job for this pr stunt and to the author obviously a bing fanboy.

 

[spyx]

I love how Google always has something to retaliate against anyone or anything that blames it for something, gives me the feeling Google is above the Gov.

 

[shortie]

This still makes me giggle ;D

 

[Puiu]

This topic has been going for way too long. Why are people making such a big case out of this. it's not like they'll start hating google more than they already do or that they'll look at other competitors for similar services.

 

[ET3D]

BlueDrake said:
Google blames US = Google can't be bothered to verify anything

You mean that Google should have assumed that the US Department of State is supplying wrong information? Who would you consider a more reliable source in these matters?

 

[lawfer]

ET3D said:
Who would you consider a more reliable source in these matters?

Ohh, that's a tough one...

 

[Guest]

This is for you and for me. Now US can sell more weapons, and I hope it will fix the economy!