11Introduction
A second problem with our obsession with the Google Maps style—it
inherently promotes inaccurate representations. Just because Google Maps-
style mash-ups are easy to make and ubiquitous does not mean they are
good. For example, nearly all Google Map mash-ups, at least those not hacked
by programmers, use a Web Mercator projection. The reason for using one
of the least-useful projections ever invented—outside of ocean navigation,
perhaps—is simple. It is a rectangular projection. Google wants the map to
take up the entire browser. As an Internet service provider, Google is not
troubled by the fact that this projection distorts the area of landmasses to the
extent that thematic visualizations should not be represented on it. ...