The Internet is rife with Google Translate failures, but this is the first we’ve seen on Google Maps. Apparently the Rio De Janeiro = Landfill issue on the newly launched Google Maps Brazil is known within Google and is caused by a mixup between a landfill site near Rio and a poor Portuguese to English translation, where the Portuguese is okay but the English is um, suspect.
I’ve never seen this kind of mistranslation on Maps before and from what I can glean it only affects Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Sao Paulo and other Brazilian cities are, from what I can see, immune. It is currently unclear whether Google is working on a fix.
Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and Google+, the company’s extension into the social space. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing...
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