Visited Lisboa last summer, the building where I booked an apartment was not even there in Google Maps, satellite image data was showing a leveled site with some dumpsters.
Just checked and the images are still the same old ones...
(Seriously, it's not like anyone here is paying a cent to use GMaps.)
I do understand that it's sad they don't calculate orthographic images from that to replace their satellite views in these areas though; full 3D is severely more resource intensive on the client after all.
For Epstein island the US government has scrubbed/redated large periods of historic satellite imagery in order to hide construction of underground structures on each corner of the island. Chinese equivalents of Google earth offer clear images of different construction stages that the "US Coast Guard" prefers to hide.
If you check different satellite imagery providers it's always interesting to see what time periods are even available (paid or free), and if the imagery from an earlier date has been re-labeled to suggest it was taken at a later date.
My question was more about the specific combination of 1) underground 2) in each corner.
I can come up with a plausible reason for either, but not in combination
It's like a CIA naval base for drug smuggling.
https://www.financial-news.co.uk/how-hedge-funds-are-using-s...
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/10/investing/hedge-fund-dron...
They have the resources to spend (to them) a small amount to confirm/check a play before they make it, it's been a thing since commercial satellite imaging became a thing.
Hell the (somewhat terrible but somehow enjoyable) TV show Billions had it as a plot point years ago.
Its actually not that difficult. I used to fly a satellite that could photograph anywhere in the world at least once every few days.
Dunno why we say fly, but maybe you prefer operate? Though, funny story, one of my sats had wings and was supposed to demonstrate VLEO flight.
It seems to me that it is in the favor of Google to gather the most up-to date maps, even if they can offer them in a limited window.
I wonder if the same is true for Google Earth, since I believe that uses higher quality / different maps in a lot of area's. (don't have it so I can't check)
Reasonable explanation, but they didn't, for example this is the Google Earth link [1] with satellite imagery of the area from back in September 2025, the most recent satellite imagery they seem to have from there. The fire damage can clearly be seen. So there must be some other reason behind it.
[1] https://earth.google.com/web/search/Altadena,+CA,+USA/@34.19...
They even used to have an option to get notifications when new images for an area became available.
The latest update (that i made, i only update when asked) to the app doesn't allow to disable the suggestions anymore, before if you tapped twice everything except the map and your location disappeared.
Concealing the fire damage could be used to influence or thwart campaign messaging.
Not that Google has been caught doing anything political before...
Because it really sounds like a conspiracy theory draped over a pretty tangential fact. But I’d love to be wrong if there is evidence (“Google did something totally different but also bad” is not evidence).
> Concealing the fire damage could be used to influence or thwart campaign messaging.
I know nothing about that election, but what would be Google's angle in wanting to influence it?
I'm looking for some personal projects and have had trouble finding anything in the middle ground between free and enterprise offerings. I don't mind paying a modest amount but something like Planet is beyond my budget, unless they have some personal tier I'm not aware of.