Taiwan complains to Google over their status on Google Maps
Brands, Search Engine News October 4th, 2005
Taiwan complains to Google over their status on Google Maps
The Asian country of Taiwan has complained to the search engine giants Google over the status of their country on the Google Maps web service. Google has incidentally referred to Taiwan as a province of China on its map web site. The Taiwanese foreign ministry is angered by this incident and is asking for a quick correction claiming that the company has still not responded to their complaint lodged a month ago.
They are even asking for the public in the country to complain to the company to fix this political glitch by mailing them. Their demand is that Taiwan should be referred as an independent country on the Google Maps. However, Google might face a problem considering this move would offend China, which considers Taiwan as part of their territory.
Taiwan Legislators says that they have received multiple calls from their citizens asking them to protest to the company and plan to take further actions if the Google does not fix this problem in their system. They claim that China being a big potential market for the company is making Google delay fixing this glitch.
American companies are already under public scrutiny for the ways they are manipulating their policies to act as per the wishes of the Chinese government. Last month saw Yahoo! being pressurized to reveal personal information to the Chinese government leading to the arrest of a journalist causing a huge controversy in the media. The search engine company responded by saying that they were just following the local laws.
Related Posts
Google fixes Taiwan identification problem on Google Maps
Google combines Google Book Search with Google Maps
Google enable business to display coupons on Google Maps
Tele Atlas in a deal with Google
Google criticized for using pre-Katrina maps on Google Earth

About










Both China and Google should respect the views from citizens in Taiwan. However a communist country like China is not likely to allow a “Independence Referendum” to take place before they turn into a true democratic government. Meanwhile, Google is a company for profit after all, and we all know what that will do.