The Truth About The Black Zones On Google Earth
Maybe the truth about the black zones on Google Earth is that some places on Earth don't need to be and probably shouldn't be seen by every human with internet access. But that's boring, and this is an age where pizzazz matters more than facts and logic. (Just ask NBC and Reuters.) There's nothing more pizzazz-ilicious than conspiracy theories. Accordingly, perhaps those zones form part of a nefarious plot by the Illuminati to hide Satan's hiding places on Earth. Maybe Jay-Z is using the glowing pyramid eye on his forehead to blink messages in Morse code to the ghost of Illuminati founder Adam Weishaupt, instructing him on how to interfere with satellite images or whatever.
Stupid pizzazz aside, there may be non-boring and nonetheless legitimate, completely Satan-free security or commercial reasons for blacking out or blurring an area of Google Earth. What are those reasons? Read on to find out or to dismiss them as the mad yammering of someone too blind to see the Illuminati eye.
As far as the eye can't see
The Australian Broadcasting Company explains that to understand why you can't see certain places on Google Earth, it's important to understand why you can see the visible ones. Google "[uses] algorithms that grab satellite data and ground measurements from a variety of datasets to keep maps updated — meaning that they can usurp state topographical organisations." But what countries giveth, they can taketh away. For instance, South Korea decided to withhold up-to-date data after Google refused the country's request not to "expose sensitive military sites in high resolution."
It turns out that countries aren't keen on letting companies display clear pictures of sensitive facilities, possibly because terrorists and other nefarious figures have also figured out how to use the internet. Occasionally nations like China intentionally tinker with Google's algorithms, leading to absurd mistakes like displaying a street in the middle of a river. Sometimes a private entity buys the rights to a satellite image in order to force others to pay licensing fees to display it. Or it could be a secret society hiding its top-secret operations in the most conspicuously suspicious way possible.