Israeli occupiers in the city of Kiryat Yam filed a police complaint to force Google to delete what they called as "false information that hurts the city's image".

The so called "false information" was placed a Palestinian doctor as user-generated notation placed on the image of Kiryat Yam and gives brief historical information about the location and refers to Nakhba - Palestinian Catastrophe. The notation reads:

This is one of the Palestinian localities evacuated and destroyed after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. For basic information about this locality, including brief history, the 1948 events, its current status, pictures and statistics, visit: www.palestineremembered.com.

(Click to enlarge)

The Israeli occupier complaint that "Those who see Kiryat Yam on Google Earth are told that the city was built on the ruins of an Arab town from which innocent civilians were expelled. In fact, officials said, the city was built by Holocaust survivors on land that was completely barren and had not been settled in the past. The false information was placed as part of a deliberate attempt to hurt the city's interests, they said."

The good news is that Google told them to "get lost" and that the altered map is "not illegal":

While we recognize that some may find the user generated content objectionable, we are careful to balance the integrity of an open forum with the legal requirements of local governments. It looks as though this particular user-contributed annotation does not breach our Terms and Conditions nor is it in any way illegal.

The Google Earth community layer is a place where people can tag their knowledge or opinions of a location. Their comments are clearly indicated with the 'I' icon and this layer can easily be switched on and off.

We believe the majority of people use the community positively to share their expertise and experiences. In most cases, our users increase the utility of the product and provide a more meaningful and robust experience for each other with their contributions to the Google Earth community.

The International Herald Tribune published more details about the story and interviewed the Palestinian doctor:

Northern Israeli town files complaint over Google claim it was built on Arab village

IHT - An Israeli town is suing Internet giant Google for slander, a local official said Monday, because a feature of its worldwide map service shows the town was built on the ruins of an Arab village.

The dispute brings together two controversies, one old and one new. Officials from the town, Kiryat Yam, deny they displaced Arabs during the war that followed Israel's creation in 1948, and Google is defending the practice of allowing any surfer to change information in its files.

Kiryat Yam is a town of 40,000 on the Mediterranean coast just north of the port of Haifa. An entry on Google Earth, a feature that allows users to zero in on locations around the world, alleges that the town was built on the ruins of Ghawarina, an Arab village.

Hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled or were expelled during the 1948-49 war that began with Israel's declaration of independence. Dozens of Arab villages were destroyed.

Kiryat Yam was pulled into the dispute - still one of the hottest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - when a Google Earth user, Thameen Darby, inserted a note on the map saying it was built on the location of Ghawarina. Darby has inserted at least 10 such notes over Google's map of Israel.

Kiryat Yam filed a slander complaint with Israel's police, said town official Naty Keyzilberman. "This obviously cannot be true, because Kiryat Yam was founded in 1945," he said, explaining the police complaint.

Darby, 30, a Palestinian doctor raised in the northern West Bank town of Jenin, said his mother was a refugee from to the village Balad al-Sheikh near Kiryat Yam. His said his contributions to Google Earth are part of the "Nakhba -- Palestinian Catastrophe" information hub aimed to help displaced Palestinians understand their heritage or find the villages of their parents or grandparents.

"As far as I can know, the Arab Ghawarina locality was in the place depicted," Darby told The Associated Press. He noted that he may have not marked the exact location and if proven wrong "by reliable sources, I will be quick to reallocate it."

Darby's Internet Web site pinpoints Ghawarina on the site of Kiryat Yam, but another places it south of Haifa at the site of a present-day Arab town, Jisr el-Zarka. Six decades later, it is difficult to accurately locate many of the destroyed villages, leading to the conflciting claims.

Above Kiryat Yam, Darby wrote, "this is one of the Palestinian localities evacuated and destroyed after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war."

"That's simply complete nonsense," Professor Yossi Ben-Artzi of Haifa University told Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot. "Kiryat Yam was built on sand dunes, and there wasn't any Palestinian village in the area. The lands were bough in 1939 by the Gav Yam construction company."

Asked to respond to the police complaint, a Google spokesman said Google Earth depends on user-generated content that reflects what people contribute, not what Google believes is accurate. The spokesman would not give his name, in keeping with company policy.

The spokesman insisted that the altered map is not illegal, and Google's policy is not to remove such postings.

One point for Google!

So now it's Microsoft turn to answer back to Google Maps with their Virtual Earth beta product. Virtual Earth is very similar to Google Maps in that you can drag and zoom satellite or roadmap map views.

Have you seen where do you live from space? Google Earth just launched the beta version. It's amazing view. Give it a try, it's worth it!