Google: A Map to Your World

Google Maps is slick and brimming with potential. Privacy and security? If Maps will bump the stock up, who cares?

The Google Maps beta site is fast and, sometimes, smart. Type in Cambridge restaurants and a map pops up with pin-pointed locations with addresses, phone numbers and links to websites. The maps are simple, easy to navigate and you can scroll and zoom them smoothly. The business case is obvious: Businesses will pay tidy little sums to be prominently featured on maps. The more money you give Google, the better play you get. It's yellow pages on steriods.

Google Maps also provides the option to view satellite images instead of illustrated maps. That's great if you want to know how close a neighborhood is to schools or parks, or as Google's blog says, if you want to "check out the 'beach' in 'beachfront.'" Not so great if you're trying to protect critical infrastructure. Remember all those pictures of landmarks the FBI found on alleged terrorists' computers? It took me 54 seconds to find a crisp (beautiful, actually) overhead shot of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The pinpoints on the maps also offer the option to retrieve directions to that location from anywhere. That's great if an old friend comes to town to meet you for lunch. Not so great for chief security officers who know workplace violence is already one of their top concerns.

What's more, you don't even need to ask for a location to find one. Google connects locations to the logic of its text searches so that, for example, when you type in my name you get my place of work, even if you didn't search for it. In Google Maps' beta version at least, this creates pretty shoddy maps. In addition to my office, a search on me turned up Internet Bearer Underwriter's Corp along with a map to get there. I couldn't figure out why at first, but it turned out someone who worked there had posted one of my Alarmed columns on a discussion board.

That's pretty useless. But here's a less harmless example: I tried larry page mountain view. Page is Google's co-founder and Mountain View is his business's headquarters. The search turned up Google's offices, all right. But then it seemed to link to any "Larry" it could find near Mountain View. There was a link to the details of a speaking engagement, "Larry Everest on Bush Agenda" at Stanford, on the website for the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center. Maybe this means Larry Page is also anti-war? Does this link have anything to do with him? I wonder how he feels being linked to this event. I wonder how Larry Everest feels being linked to the co-founder of Google?