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The foreign ministry of Taiwan has objected to being referred to as a province of China on Google Maps.
Editor's Note: Do you think Google intentionally labeled
Taiwan as a province of China? Let us know on WebProWorld.
 The
government of Taiwan, which rules the island nation, has complained
to search engine company Google about how Taiwan is represented
on Google Maps. That product refers to Taiwan as a province
of China.
In a Reuters report, a spokesperson for Taiwan commented on
the issue. "It is incorrect to call Taiwan a province of China
because we are not," foreign ministry spokesman Michel Lu said.
"We have contacted Google to express our position and asked
them to correct the description."
Taiwan calls itself the Republic of China and has done so since the end of a civil war with China in 1949. However, the country is not formally recognized by the UN as a sovereign nation, and China has viewed Taiwan as a breakaway province for years.
Taiwan, of course, has disagreed with the mainland government's view of the situation. That has led to tension between not just the two government's but between the US and China as well. Meanwhile, the Taiwan Solidarity Union has urged citizens to email Google in protest.
Referring to Taiwan as a province could be just an innocent mistake on someone's part at Google. But Google and other high-tech firms have faced accusations of being too compliant with Chinese Internet censors, and this could be viewed as a subtle bit of appeasement toward a country with a fast growing Internet market waiting to be tapped.
That market of over 100 million Chinese Internet users has become compelling enough to lead players in the search engine market to be very competitive. Microsoft continues to fight Google in court over its hiring of former Microsoft executive Kai-Fu Lee to run Google's China operations.
About
the Author:
David is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology
and business. |
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Getting
A Direct Answer From Google
By David Utter
Search engines could be a lot more useful to people if they could provide a straight answer to a direct question.
PC World wrestled with the question of getting instant answers
out of search engines. In a report, the magazine did an informal study
of how Ask Jeeves, MSN Search, and Answer.com fared at answering
questions.
They included queries to Google as a control; the author notes
how Google's results "were almost identical to those of Answers.com."
The reason, of course, is that Answers ‘enhances' its search results
with Google search. I have to wonder if the author missed this or just
didn't include it in the story.
Anyway, all three test sites along with Google fared the same
at handling "natural-language questions." Ask Jeeves has long
advertised itself as being able to work well with these types of
queries, but only in recent months has their search technology become
more effective.
The article summed up their general impressions of the four
sites. They note MSN Search as being the fastest and Ask Jeeves as
returning the most sponsored links. Google and MSN both correct
misspellings and suggest alternatives on the first page of results.
About
the Author:
David is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology
and business. |
|
The Sun, The Search, and The Moon
Welcome one and all to the WebProWorld spotlight section, featuring
a hand-picked post of note for you to enjoy. Today's post features
Jason Miller taking a look at the upcoming Sun Microsystems/Google
alliance announcement, which is expected to take place today
at 10:30am PST. Apparently, the news is pretty groundbreaking.
Some are even saying it's monumental. Drop by and post what
you think these two tech goliaths have up their respective sleeves.
Until later,
|| Chris||
First
Google Earth, Now Google Sun?
Sun Microsystems made a one-sentence announcement today that has already produced giant vibrations on Wall Street and will likely produce fault-line like tremors throughout the tech world. The announcement: they’re teaming up with Google for something to be announced tomorrow—one sentence that no doubt shook building foundations in Redmond.
“Please join Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems Chairman and CEO
and Dr. Eric Schmidt, Google Chairman of the Executive Committee
and CEO as they discuss a new collaborative effort between the
two companies,” reads the website.
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WebPro Question: |
In our analytical tracking, clicks from organic search
have the same referral info as those from paid search.
Any suggestions?
- phunklord
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