DISQUS

Jason Avi,

Apparently you didn't understand my point about the DMCA. Under it, Google is provided a Safe Harbor and is not responsible for people using their service as well as they are within the terms of use, which this seemed to be. They have no legal obligation, and having to chase every claim of false information would be costly and could be used to "spam google" as you have used as an argument.

Also, who said anything about terrorists? If something that is written on a user generated site like Wikipedia is factually incorrect, you have the power to fix it. The point of these sites is to harness the power of the whole to provide information, which allows the topics to change accordingly with real world events.

Also, the "democratic world" should stay out of the internet. It was them staying out in the first place that makes the internet free (see China as a censor), and purely democratic. Until you show me a valid reason for Google to start censoring user generated content, I'll stick with the DMCA safe harbor that was put in place for a reason.

Johann I never said nor implied anything along those lines, nor did I condone or condemn the existence of false information on user-edited sites.

If you honestly believe all the information on these free, user-edited sites is legitimate and that "wow, this is the first time someone's ever posted false information on the internet!", then you are sorely mistaken.

But good job on putting words into my mouth with that whole "spam" nonsense. I enjoyed reading that.

ed go ahead and try. Google search is not based on opinion, it is based on actual content with no human judgement applied.

Wiki's and google earth descriptions are based solely on human opinion. With no facts verified by by official sources.

Jason Avi,

Go take a look at Wikipedia, the users make sure that all information (or at least as much as possible) has a cited source so that it can be verified. If you're really worry about it being false information, then what about published encyclopedias? The process being building an encyclopedia is not transparent, so how can we verify the quality of them? No matter what you are looking at, there is always the possibility of false information. it's the nature of information. You need to take everything with a grain of salt and check the purposed facts. If you believe something without checking, then you only have yourself to blame for being led down the wrong path since you did not doubt the information.

Jason Avi,

In the United States, there is a "Safe Harbor" clause where service providers are not held responsible for the actions of their users, given that the provider doesn't moderate/filter any content. Google should not be held legally liable since they did not post/moderate/filter the statement about the town. Now, should the person who posted the information be held liable? If the information is in fact incorrect (I don't know enough about the area to say one way or the other), then yes, the person who posted should be held liable. However, you can't blame Google for one of its users, and it does not attempt to monitor content, which is covered (at least in the US) by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Safe Harbor Clause

Craig You think it's a lie? Prove it. I suspect just like most things in that area of the world there are 2 versions of the story.