How quickly our expectations change. This quote from the Deputy Premier of Queensland in Australia says a lot about how much we take services like Google Maps for granted these days:

"I think people would accept satellite photos that are six months or so behind – especially given it is a free service – but not satellite photos that are two years or more old."
[http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/national/national/general/google-maps-bad-for-queenslands-image/812688.aspx]

Heh, that's a good quote.

My local photos (in the UK) are still 5 years old.

Political speech. Sometimes I don't want to get it. If Queensland were in a decline as opposed to experiencing growth, it'd have a vested interest in keeping older images. Then the story would be "newer images are bad for Queensland's image."

Who owns the satellite imagery? Who paid to get it? Why do we have access – is it to build brand (via Google, for example), or is it because access to this data is a sensible thing for global citizens to have (more in line with http://www.gapminder.org/, also check out Hans Rosling on http://www.ted.com)? It's that type of question that we've been shying away from, and that the media will only ask in roundabout ways (like Time in the 2007 Person of the Year article, recalling the 2006 Person 'You', here – http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/personoftheyear/article/0,28804,1690753_1695417_1695397,00.html).