Everton fans have been given cause to smile, after it was found that searching for the term “gobshites” in Google Maps would direct them to their rival Liverpool’s Anfield stadium.
Though it is not known who is responsible for the prank, it was probably done using the crowdsourcing features on Google Maps, which allow users around the world to make edits to keep the map up to date.
Google closed its Map Maker tool, a previous version of its crowdsourcing service, in March after a series of embarrassments.
In 2015, Google was forced to suspend the tool after a patch of green in the shape of an Android robot urinating on an Apple logo appeared on the map, south of the city of Rawalpindi in Pakistan.
Also in 2015, the term “Theatre of Shite” was found to direct users to Manchester United’s Old Trafford, known as the “Theatre of Dreams” by fans. Searching for “the shithole” took users to Tottenham’s White Hart Lane.
Other comedy edits have included the creation of an “Edward’s Snow Den” in the entrance hall of the White House and the words “Google’s review policy is crap” scrawled across Pakistan’s Takht Pari forest. A pond shaped like the Skype logo was also found in Lahore, and a Pepsi logo in an Islamabad hospital.
Google is understood to be aware of the issue and looking into it.
(Guardian service)
