Nicaragua Blames Google Maps for Accidental Invasion of Costa Rica
Nicaraguan troops accidentally invaded Costa Rica earlier this week. Now the Nicaraguan government is blaming Google maps: "There is a bug in Google, we sent a note to the company to rectify the map," said the Deputy Foreign Minister.
Nicaraguan troops are accused of crossing the (hotly disputed) border into Costa Rica and setting up camp for the night. But the commander says it was all a mistake caused by shoddy Google Maps. The commander told a Costa Rican newspaper:
See the satellite photo on Google and there you see the border. In the last 3,000 meters the two sides are from Nicaragua.
(Pardon the Google translation, which is about as accurate as Nicaraguans claim Google's maps are.)
Turns out, the error was caused by incorrect border data from the State Department. In a blog post, Google says they've now corrected the error. Yikes. We could totally imagine Hitler using this excuse to invade Poland. [Search Engine Land via Tech Dirt.]