Google's phantom

04/11/09 posted by Liz Niland

You know Argleton right? South of Ormskirk in Lancashire? No? Oh, it’s in Google Maps so it must be there.

Actually, Google lied. Argleton is what is being hailed as a “phantom village” created by Google Maps either accidentally or, just for laughs. According to the Guardian, “in reality the village's coordinates point to little more than a muddy field”. The answer being floated by locals is that the person in charge of plugging the data into the Google machine accidentally created a variation on the real nearby village of Aughton. Conspiracy theorists though have suggested it may be a copyright feature to protect Google Maps - by purposely creating a non-existent place, it is easy to see whether the map was sourced from Google’s database.

In other Google news, the search engine’s fleet of Holden Astras will be hitting the streets of Oz this summer for another round of Street View action. As posted on the Official Google Australia Blog, the new images set for collection this round will be crisper, allowing for restaurant names and street signs to be seen more clearly. There’ll also be better blurring technology for license plates and unsuspecting faces.