In what sounds like a devious employee prank, Google Maps is identifying certain U.S. businesses as whore houses. What a great public service this would be if the brothel ID tags were accurate! Alas, they are not. Go ahead and try it before Google management plugs the hole - go to Google Maps, type in a zip code and include the word "brothels" without the quotation marks.
One business that was misidentified as a cathouse is the Abstinence Clearinghouse in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a non-profit orginization that hooks up people who are against pre-marital hookups. Leslee Unruh, the President of the Abstinence Clearinghouse, while angered about Google's little "mistake," said that it at least explained an ongoing mystery:
"We've been seeing some strange men stopping by the office," she said. "They're clearly looking for something. If they're traveling and using Google, maybe they think we're..." she said, but didn't finish. "We're right off the Interstate."
"I'd love to know what's going on," she said. "Although we do have a red lamp near the window. I told my staff, 'we have to get that out of there.'"
via Yahoo news.
WBAI came up as a whore house for me.
Posted by: Rob S. | May 14, 2005 at 10:36 AM
There was some talk a few months ago on the blogs about other interesting searches you can get through Google Maps, mostly centering around doing a search for "Satan near city name". Check out "Satan near Jersey City".
Posted by: jima | May 14, 2005 at 10:52 AM
I typed in "crack house" and found even more tags. Oddly, these were more centrally located.
Posted by: Jaylefus | May 14, 2005 at 02:19 PM
Hi!
This is very strange. I tried "brothels" in my zip code (08904), they didn't have any. But they helpfully showed nearby "brothels": the Village Voice office, the Film Forum in Manhattan, and the Hungarian Cultural Center in New Brunswick NJ.
Everyone's got something bad to say about the poor Hungarians, I guess . . .
Posted by: Listener John | May 14, 2005 at 04:22 PM
I followed jima's example, above, and tried "satan near washington dc." I got (of course!) the White House and the Cato Institute, but also White House Tours and the Conference of Catholic Bishops.
If you click on the red "pin" marked "B" on the DC map, it gives links to web sites. The first one "www.samliquidation.com" is either an anti-Jewish or strange pro-Jewish site -- it makes reference to satan and the president of the USA.
Does Google Maps work by finding key words ("satan," "white house")in any old crazy website, locating websites in which Old Scratch and DC get mentioned, and mapping the locations of any places (the White House) mentioned in the sites?
Posted by: Listener John | May 14, 2005 at 04:38 PM
I am totally abstinent. I am able to stay abstinent and what we call "sexually sober" by attending Sexaholics Anonymous which was started by Roy K. It is the one of the major sexual recovery organisations which helps people who have been acting out as sexually compulsive people, or sex addicts become completely sexually sober and conquer lust. It has been estimated that there are upward of 35,000 to 60,000 members of these groups worldwide. Though it is Sexaholics Anonymous and the daily meetings I attend there that helps keep me completely sexually abstinent, I started another of the the Sexual Recovery Groups, and you'll find more about the group I started as you continue reading this. While SCA taught me to abandon some of my sexually destructive behavior, it was not until I joined SA that I became enabled to become completely abstinent. While Sexaholics Anonymous teaches us how to aspire to total sexual sobriety, the other groups allow more leeway in how to define "sexual sobriety". But for me, at this time in my life, the only way is to be completely celibate. This is about how the Sexual Recovery Movement got started in 1973. I was there and started the first of the five "S" Groups (Sexual Recovery Groups), At a new website, you can see how the press described the first of these groups and how the Sexual Recovery Movement got started after the Rev. Troy Perry gave us a place to meet. Back when we started these first Twelve Step meetings, during the 1970"s, we received press from Newsweek, the Advocate, the Los Angeles Free Press, Pacific Radio Station KPFK, etc. I"ve kept copies of most of these press clippings and you can see many of them at a new website called http://scaorigins.com and this press coverage helped inspire others to follow our lead by starting their own sex-related 12 Step Groups. Some of the first members travelled and sometimes moved to other cities where they started new chapters. Gradually, some of us learned to fight lust and sexual compulsiveness. Several years later the term sexual addiction also began to be used sometimes. There has been a lot of confusion about starting dates of these various groups. The scaorigins.com web site provides the most reliable documenting of the first 'S' Group"s genesis. Some of this documentation was shared at an SCA conference in February 2005 at Hollywood California"s Plummer Park. I gave the opening talk of the conference about what it was like when Sexual Compulsives Anonymous began in 1973. Roy, the founder of Sexaholics Anonymous came to some of those 1970"s SCA meetings while we were trying to discover what sexual sobriety was all about. Not long after SCA started, Roy created Sexaholics Anonymous. Later would come Sex Addicts Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous and Sex Recovery Anonymous.
Frank L.
[email protected]
Posted by: Frank L | May 31, 2005 at 01:36 AM
"Googles Map is identifying certain U.S. businesses as whore houses."
Comment: There's no doubt about this: Abstinence Clearinghouse IS A (POLICY-THINKING) BUSINESS.
"SO HELP ME GOD and first of all, my money but also my ideas".
For religion, as for sex, do what you think... "God for every one... and every one for oneself !"
Posted by: uzeste | August 06, 2006 at 06:47 AM