Why is Google Maps back to showing old satellite images of Altadena?
reddit.comWell there is a very contentious mayoral election going on in LA right now, and the fires are a central topic.
Concealing the fire damage could be used to influence or thwart campaign messaging.
Not that Google has been caught doing anything political before...
Altadena is part of unincorporated LA County, they don't vote in the City of Los Angeles elections.
Palisades fire damage has also been removed from the mapping.
Must only be for US users. When I look at it from Australia the Palisades damage is still there. Altadena also shows mostly vacant and cleared lots.
> Well there is a very contentious mayoral election going on in LA right now, and the fires are a central topic.
> Concealing the fire damage could be used to influence or thwart campaign messaging.
I know nothing about that election, but what would be Google's angle in wanting to influence it?
Google has two campuses in LA. They have at least some vested interest in local politics being friendly to them.
Google likely doesn't have an angle, but the person who decided to make this change maybe does.
There’s plenty of evidence of the ineptitude and corruption of the Los Angeles government located in the actual city. I don’t think anybody in LA is hinging a vote on the rebuilding process in Alta Dena.
Is there any evidence of such an elaborate scheme? Are voters looking on Google Maps to validate claims about the fires, in some kind of mass trend that produces evidence?
Because it really sounds like a conspiracy theory draped over a pretty tangential fact. But I’d love to be wrong if there is evidence (“Google did something totally different but also bad” is not evidence).
Google is not flying over the area itself right? perhaps they where using source maps with some sort of license agreement and the license expired, or there was a dispute.
It seems to me that it is in the favor of Google to gather the most up-to date maps, even if they can offer them in a limited window.
I wonder if the same is true for Google Earth, since I believe that uses higher quality / different maps in a lot of area's. (don't have it so I can't check)
This was my first thought. The simplest explanation is that they lost access to the recent imagery. If you were going to build a system like this, you'd show the most recent imagery for an area that you have access to. If one of your license agreements ends, it might mean you end up showing less desirable data, but at least you're showing data.
> The simplest explanation is that they lost access to the recent imagery. I
Reasonable explanation, but they didn't, for example this is the Google Earth link [1] with satellite imagery of the area from back in September 2025, the most recent satellite imagery they seem to have from there. The fire damage can clearly be seen. So there must be some other reason behind it.
[1] https://earth.google.com/web/search/Altadena,+CA,+USA/@34.19...
As the sibling comment noted, Earth is a different product. If your license pays out by tiles served, Earth is far cheaper to service. Maps is in phones, cars, website contact pages, third party apps, etc. Multiple orders of magnitude more exposure.
As I understand it Google earth and Google maps are two separate products. And Google earth is the more premium product (more data and features accessable), therefore perhaps the licenses are separately negotiated?
Occam’s razor would suggest someone at Google took it down. I’m not sure we need to reach for convoluted explanations to explain things.
Not entirely related, but Google Maps is still showing satellite images from 5 years ago in Paris, one of the most visited cities in the world, and it's not even updated once a year. I don't get it.
In Germany it seems to have moved to the 3D photogrammetry data for anything with pixel sizes smaller than a car; is that maybe also the case for Paris?
I do understand that it's sad they don't calculate orthographic images from that to replace their satellite views in these areas though; full 3D is severely more resource intensive on the client after all.
The most unfortunate thing about Google's 3D photogrammetry is that they don't allow you to view historical captures, as they only serve the flattened 2D version there. For the time being, the only resource for these captures are various Microsoft Flight Simulator addons where people dumped Google's photogrammetry data to add scenery not included in the built-in photogrammetry coverage.
Many similar cases accross Europe.
Visited Lisboa last summer, the building where I booked an apartment was not even there in Google Maps, satellite image data was showing a leveled site with some dumpsters.
Just checked and the images are still the same old ones...
There's no promo packet material in spending money on making the product a bit better with up to date imagery so why would anyone bother?
Half the company is happy coasting at their level and isn't even trying for promo.
And the top of Google is laying off anyone who spends a dime that isn't triple-justified.
How about Gemini Maps? Maps that fill the gaps!
Oh wait, it's already in progress... Nevermind.
I'm sure they can't wait to work on your personal pet peeve and get that sweet promo endorsement just from you.
(Seriously, it's not like anyone here is paying a cent to use GMaps.)
That is aerial imagery and Paris is a major metro that gets the 3D treatment. I wouldn't expect them to update that regularly.
I found that Google Maps also shows ~5 year old satellite images in Budapest, even though the copyright in the bottom right would tell otherwise. BUT if you toggle globe view, you get a more recent satellite image that seems to actually match the copyright date. (It can be toggled in Layers -> More, at the bottom, when on a desktop, not sure about the app)
I've been finding a lot of ~5 year old satellite and street view data. It's only anecdotal, but it seems like Google is not updating their imagery as often as they used to.
Probably because it makes sense to be building AI related stuff, so no one is working on that.
They even used to have an option to get notifications when new images for an area became available.
The latest update (that i made, i only update when asked) to the app doesn't allow to disable the suggestions anymore, before if you tapped twice everything except the map and your location disappeared.
Does anyone know of a good service for getting more up to date satellite images that can be used with other software, such as a tile server, vector map, or similar?
I'm looking for some personal projects and have had trouble finding anything in the middle ground between free and enterprise offerings. I don't mind paying a modest amount but something like Planet is beyond my budget, unless they have some personal tier I'm not aware of.
ArcGIS Location Platform is a pay-as-you-go solution and their APIs are very generously priced IME.
Thank you, that looks excellent.
Maps are extremely political.
For Epstein island the US government has scrubbed/redated large periods of historic satellite imagery in order to hide construction of underground structures on each corner of the island. Chinese equivalents of Google earth offer clear images of different construction stages that the "US Coast Guard" prefers to hide.
If you check different satellite imagery providers it's always interesting to see what time periods are even available (paid or free), and if the imagery from an earlier date has been re-labeled to suggest it was taken at a later date.
Why would the island need underground structures at each corner?
Backup power generators? Security control room? There are tens of reasons why you'd put some parts of your estate underground
>why you'd put some parts of your estate underground
My question was more about the specific combination of 1) underground 2) in each corner.
I can come up with a plausible reason for either, but not in combination
I guess it's storage, sensors and microwave links. On one corner you can see a concrete pad where a small boat can land unseen from the mainland. There are some official helicopter flyby videos but all of them fail to capture this one particular side of the island.
It's like a CIA naval base for drug smuggling.
I assume for the more depraved shit they wanted extra privacy for?
Only the US government can answer this. I think it involves smuggling of prohibited goods.
How deep could an underground structure even be on the corner of an island?
That’s pretty strange. I wonder if Altadena restricted Google from updating the map imagery?
I wonder if there actually does exist updated to-the-minute imagery of various places, just not from sources publicly available on platforms like Google Maps?
Yes, you can buy it from commercial providers like Planet or even Airbus. They update a few times a day, though depending on the place you are interested in, you may need to put in a request for them to image it.
Its actually not that difficult. I used to fly a satellite that could photograph anywhere in the world at least once every few days.
fly a satellite? how?
Mostly by sitting at a computer and typing commands...
Dunno why we say fly, but maybe you prefer operate? Though, funny story, one of my sats had wings and was supposed to demonstrate VLEO flight.
It must be quite valuable data. One anecdote I heard/read somewhere was that firms often use satellite imagery of parking lots (over time, as one measure among others) to gauge how popular a place is. I don't know if it's true or not.
It's true and they go a lot further hunting signals that people without their resources simply can't.
https://www.financial-news.co.uk/how-hedge-funds-are-using-s...
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/10/investing/hedge-fund-dron...
They have the resources to spend (to them) a small amount to confirm/check a play before they make it, it's been a thing since commercial satellite imaging became a thing.
Hell the (somewhat terrible but somehow enjoyable) TV show Billions had it as a plot point years ago.
Similarly, I listened to a talk from someone who used to perform analysis of aerial images of farmland to estimate yields at harvest, which would then be used to trade in the futures market.
Perhaps they were subpoena’d to provide data to an insurance dispute and decided they’d rather not?
I wonder what the licensing fees for this type of imagery one could earn. Consider the cost of renting a plane and equipment for this type of footage and then the data management later. Would you be able to recoup that expense?