An Israeli town is suing the internet giant Google for slander because a feature of its worldwide map service shows the town was built on the ruins of an Arab village.
Kiryat Yam is a town of 40,000 on the coast just north of Haifa. An entry on Google Earth, a feature that allows users to zero in on locations around the world, alleges that the town was built on the ruins of Ghawarina, an Arab village.
Kiryat Yam was pulled into the dispute – one of the hottest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – when a Google Earth user, Thameen Darby, inserted a note on the map saying it was built on the location of Ghawarina. Darby has inserted at least ten such notes over Google's map. |