Google, Huawei, And The Battle to Make Our Maps.
By: Clark Boyd
Tags: Business, Huawei, Google, Maps, Technology

Google, Huawei, And The Battle to Make Our Maps.

Way back in the year 1501, before the original iPod or even the Walkman existed, the King of Portugal sent a merry band of explorers to check out the strange piece of land discovered by Mr Columbus a few years prior.

One of the explorers, Amerigo Vespucci, found that this land was not the eastern boundary of Asia. Rather, it was a separate continent.

He wrote about his journey and, as was the custom, signed off with the Latin form of his name: Amerigus Vespucci.

The foremost cartographer of the day used Vespucci’s writings to add new detail to his global map.

So, what to call this “New World”? It seemed only right to honor Vespucci, but ‘Amerigus’ lacked a certain panache. Besides; Europa, Asia, Africa — they all end in ‘a’.

And lo, Ameriga. Or, as it became known, America.

You’ve probably heard that story before and, if not, I’m sure you saw where it was heading before the punchline. Even I couldn’t start a story about maps by losing the audience that quickly.

Maps matter, you see.

They record frontiers; between countries and cultures, but also of our knowledge.

Whoever creates our maps has the power to name, shape, even manipulate.

Vespucci and his crew knew this back then.

Google certainly knows it today.

In 2010, Nicaragua used Google Maps to justify its invasion of Costa Rica. See, Google Maps had marked Costa Rica’s Calero Island as Nicaraguan territory.

A Nicaraguan army commander said, “The satellite photo on Google shows where the border lies.”

Got a problem with us being here? Google it — we’re on home turf, essentially.

About a week after that seismic geographical gaffe, Google was dragged into a diplomatic battle between Morocco and Spain over the delightfully-titled Isla de Perejil (Parsley Island). Google had mistakenly labeled the herbaceous isle as part of Morocco, when it was officially Spanish territory.

In the quest to store the world’s data for commercial gain, Google realized pretty quickly that it was involved in the world of geopolitics.

Google’s original approach to its Maps product was markedly different to that of traditional cartographers.

It asked its users to help keep the map updated in remote territories through the Map Maker tool, which launched in 2008. That was shut down in 2015 after a number of chancers added rogue images, such as a Google logo urinating on an Apple logo. Suspicions remain about whether it was an inside job.

Google also used its vast index of content to add context to the listings on its maps. It would pull key phrases about countries or monuments to help provide information for searchers.

It had to change tack again, after searches for obscene phrases (I won’t repeat them, but you can guess the kind of thing) triggered results for The White House while the Obamas were in residence.

Maps should be a reflection of reality. The challenge is choosing the right reality to reflect.

In this instance, Google Maps reflected the racist and sexist biases in society. They’re real, no doubt, but we’d be best off not encouraging them to the surface.

Google is a for-profit company and wants reliable, cost-effective ways to make its products work.

However, many of its products have implications beyond the company’s financial statements.

This week, Google Maps turned 15 and its maker released a host of new features for the big occasion.

Live View’s augmented reality features work in a lot more locations now and you can access more information about transport routes.

Google Maps has over 1 billion users each month and is a central component of Google’s future strategy. It is pretty handy for directing driverless cars and Google has a vested interest in knowing where we all are, too.

As such, it is worth the hassle of political tensions, in order to maintain the world’s most popular map.

Late last year, we found out that Google Maps in Russia shows Crimea as part of the Russian Federation. This runs contrary to its official international status as Ukrainian territory.

The issues with Nicaragua and Spain in 2010 were damaging, but ultimately accidental.

Ten years later, Google’s mistakes seem a little more purposeful. Insidious, even.

A younger iteration of Maps could conceivably mistake Parsley Island for Moroccan. Today’s adult incarnation is unlikely to make such an honest error with Crimea.

As we saw in last week’s article, Apple made an identical change to its Maps product in late 2019 to ease tensions with Russia.

However, these are no longer simple business decisions. To the affected population, they are tantamount to a tacit approval of foreign aggression.

Ukraine’s Minister for Foreign Affairs didn’t hold back:

The fact that Google and Apple have no organizing political belief other than their own corporate growth offers little succour, I imagine.

To some, this may seem an over-reaction.

Having grown up in Northern Ireland, I have certainly seen this depth of feeling about seemingly trivial issues of nomenclature over and over again.

There’s a lot in a name, but Google and Apple have no commercial interest in considering all sides before acting. They will blow with the political winds.

Which brings us to our final stop on today’s journey.

The big tech companies in the US spend a large fortune lobbying the government. The public and private spheres retain some distance from each other, most of the time.

Things are a little different in China.

Huawei has, thus far, received $760 billion in subsidies from the Chinese government. No wonder its phones are cheap, eh?

It is also managing to sow division between foreign governments.

The UK’s decision to allow Huawei a role in developing its 5G infrastructure has caused a rift between it and its long-time ally, the US.

For its part, the US has blacklisted Huawei due to fears that the Chinese telecom company could use its devices to spy on US citizens.

Apple and Microsoft will still work with Huawei, but Google will not.

Huawei is partnering with Xiaomi to create a rival to Google’s app store and, more pertinently to this story, it is working with TomTom to create a Google Maps alternative.

A business like Huawei would have little recourse to create a new map, in other circumstances. It was happy to work with Google’s Android OS, until things got political.

Now, the world’s second-biggest smartphone manufacturer is barely visible in the US and is investing heavily in a new operating system.

Maps are always laden with the biases of their creator. Map users must trust in what they see; after all, we would struggle to verify their veracity on anything larger than a very local scale.

Geographical boundaries are arbitrary and artificial; they can be redrawn with ease, even insouciance.

Google, Apple, and Huawei all have distinct agendas and today’s tech companies are political tools. That relationship between technology and politics will manifest itself in our digital maps.

The victors in this particular map war will gain the power to draw boundaries, label land, and track our every move.

Their reality will become ours.