Video[]
about New Orleans, 3 years after Katrina.
House panel: Why did Google 'Airbrush History?'[]
- Google using pre-Katrina satellite pictures of New Orleans
- Not clear when it switched from images with storm damage
- House panel calls change an "injustice" to storm's victims
- Google says it switched to images with improved detail
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- Google's replacement of post-Hurricane Katrina satellite imagery on its map portal with images of the region before the storm does a "great injustice" to the storm's victims, a congressional subcommittee said.
The House Committee on Science and Technology's subcommittee on investigations and oversight on Friday asked Google Inc. Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt to explain why his company is using the outdated imagery.
"Google's use of old imagery appears to be doing the victims of Hurricane Katrina a great injustice by airbrushing history," subcommittee chairman Brad Miller, D-North Carolina, wrote in a letter to Schmidt.
Swapping the post-Katrina images and the ruin they revealed for others showing an idyllic city dumbfounded many locals and even sparked suspicions that the company and civic leaders were conspiring to portray the area's recovery progressing better than it really is.
After Katrina, Google's satellite images were in high demand among exiles
and hurricane victims anxious to see whether their homes were damaged.
Now, though, a virtual trip through New Orleans via Google Maps is a surreal experience of scrolling across an unscathed landscape of packed parking lots and marinas full of boats.
Reality, of course, is very different: Entire neighborhoods are now slab mosaics where houses once stood and shopping malls, churches and marinas are empty of life, many gone altogether.