Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Google revealed that it has made changes to the Maps display in the Israel and Gaza regions. Reportedly this comes from a direct Israeli order.
On Google Maps, the technology giant no longer displays the ‘live traffic’ feature or direct traffic monitoring. Google confirmed the policy to Bloomberg.
According to Google, this policy is implemented every time there is a conflict in an area. The aim is for the safety of people around areas in conflict.
“As we have done before in conflict situations and in response to developing conditions in the region [Gaza], we temporarily disabled the ability to view live jams. “We do this by considering the safety of the surrounding community,” said a Google representative Bloomberg, quoted from Engadget, Thursday (26/10/2023).
Google added that people around Israel and Gaza can still get route information and arrival estimates on the company’s two digital map services, Maps and Waze.
Bloomberg citing sources reporting that the steps taken by Google were a request from the Israeli defense authorities. The request was to provide information on Israeli troops to Hamas.
Israel is afraid that if the Live Traffic feature is activated, Hamas can monitor the movements of Israeli troops when they are about to carry out a ground attack. In the United States (US) and the European Union, Hamas has been considered a terrorist organization.
Previously, Google did something similar in 2022 in Ukraine. At that time Russia carried out a massive attack on its neighboring country.
Until now, only Google is known to have turned off the Live Traffic feature in Gaza and Israel. It is not yet known whether Apple has implemented a similar policy on the Apple Maps service.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
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