There was a much longer article about Google Maps role in political disputes earlier this year in Washington Monthly:
<a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1007.gravois.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1007.gravois....</a><p>"<i>Google maintains thirty-two different region-specific versions of its Maps tool for different countries around the world that each abide by the respective local laws.</i>"
It's amazing how the "deliberate ambiguity" policy that seems to surround most border disputes breaks down when there are online maps that most people tend to accept. Even saying areas are disputed tends to cause outrage.
This reminds me of the changes Microsoft had to make to the timezone map in Windows 95:<p><a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2003/08/22/54679.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2003/08/22/54679...</a>
Google Maps must diffuse metadatas with their maps : date, origin/source, level of quality, scale of usability, etc.<p>It's the least they can do to reduce the occurence of such problems. Any honest and serious map data diffusion present metadatas. Cf. the EU "Inspire" directive for public geographical data diffusion.