Scholar says Google wrong when it comes to Viet Nam territory

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From Wire Reports

          Google’s Web-based mapping service is undermining Viet Nam’s sovereignty with misleading information about the country’s Hoang Sa (Paracel) Islands, an overseas Vietnamese scholar told Thanh Nien in Viet Nam.

          Dr. Duong Danh Huy, an East Sea researcher based in the United Kingdom, said Vietnamese people need to protest to Google, which identifies the islands as part of China in its Google Maps service, as well as warn it of risks if it keeps posting what he says is wrong information.

          Previously, after being informed by several overseas Vietnamese scholars, Thanh Nien accessed the Google service and found that when googling “Paracel,” it shows a couple of suggestions, including “Paracel Islands, China” along with Chinese names.

          To go one step further, it mentions “Paracel Islands, China” on the map.

          This is not the first time Google has posted what some consider to be misleading and China-favoring information.

          In March 2011, Thanh Nien lodged a protest with Google for the same error it its mapping service, which prompted a correction later.

          In October 2011, Le Van Ut, a Vietnamese scholar at the Oulu University in Finland, and many other overseas scholars also asked Google to remove China’s infamous “U-shaped line” — with which the country claims more than 80 percent of the East Sea — from its Chinese-language mapping page.

          However, so far the company has done nothing about it.

          Earlier, in March 2010, Google Maps also made mistakes in depicting the borderline between Viet Nam and China in the northern province of Lao Cai, experts said.

          Moreover, in its map, many areas that belong to Viet Nam totaling thousands of square kilometers were presented as belonging to China. The mapping mistakes could be seen from Apachai Town in Dien Bien Province to Quang Ninh Province’s Mong Cai Town.

          Following a request from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Google had fixed those errors.