South Korea has once again postponed a decision on whether to approve Google’s request to transfer high-precision map data on the country’s geography to its international servers. In February, Google had requested approval from the Korean National Geographic Information Institute to deploy a 1:5,000 scale map on its app in the country and to transfer […]

As TikTok continues to build out its search experience, the social network is now surfacing reviews for select places right within the comments tab of a video. The new feature, which appears to be a test, eliminates the need to conduct a new search or open Google when you come across a place on TikTok […]

Dig deep on Google Earth and you'll inevitably find a surprise or two. Maybe you're looking at far-flung islands in the middle of an ocean or checking in on something closer to home.

A few years ago, online sleuths found an image of a B-2 stealth bomber in flight over Missouri. The aircraft is smeared in the image because it was in motion, while the farm fields below appear as crisp as any other view on Google Earth.

There's something else that now appears on Google Earth. Zoom in over rural North Texas, and you'll find a satellite. It appears five times in different colors, each projected over wooded bottomlands in a remote wildlife refuge about 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of Dallas.

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The Google Maps Timeline has long been a useful though slightly uncomfortable feature that maintains a complete record of everywhere your phone goes (and probably you with it). Google recently changed the way it stored timeline data to improve privacy, but the company now confirms that a "technical issue" resulted in many users losing their timeline history altogether, and there might not be any way to recover it.

Timeline, previously known as Location History, is very useful if you need to figure out where you were on a particular day or if you just can't remember where you found that neat bar on your last vacation. Many Google users grew quite fond of having access to that data. However, Google had access to it, too. Starting in 2024, Google transitioned to storing Timeline data only on the user's individual smartphone instead of backing it up to the cloud. You can probably see where this is going.

Users started piping up over the past several weeks, posting on the Google support forums, Reddit, and other social media that their treasured Timeline data had gone missing. Google has been investigating the problem, and the news isn't good. In an email sent out over the weekend, Google confirmed what many already feared: Maps has accidentally deleted Timeline data on countless devices.

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Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum pointed out that the United States' claim to name the ocean area only applies for up to 12 nautical miles off its coastline.

A flood of negative feedback flooded the body of water following the Trump-mandated name change.

Google Maps officially updated the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America on Monday. Among many other executive orders, President Donald Trump decreed on the day of his inauguration that the Gulf of Mexico would be renamed the Gulf of America. This executive order also reverses an Obama-era move to rename […]

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Mexico's government is urging Google to reconsider bending the knee to Trump.

Google Maps is planning to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order to rename several American landmarks, including the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. However, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said in a press conference on Wednesday that Mexico will send a letter to Google questioning its choice to update the body of water’s name. […]

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Google will rename the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Denali mountain in Google Maps once a federal mapping database reflects changes ordered by the Trump Administration, the company announced Monday. Google is complying with an executive order issued last week by President Donald Trump that changed the names of several American landmarks. The executive order […]

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A Wired investigation found that Google Maps can be near impossible to use in the West Bank, especially since the start of the war. Users told the publication that the navigation app would direct them into walls, fail to account for time-consuming checkpoints, or steer them onto restricted roads leading to Israeli settlements, which can […]

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Did a Google Street View car capture a murder disposal in progress?

The Waze alerts on Google Maps are just another harrowing reminder of our eventual foray into a buttonless future.

In this case, incorrect instructions from the web mapping application seem to have proved fatal.