Google greenwashing what is clearly a demonstration of its power to redirect flows of people at a whim. I wonder what other purposes such redirections could be used for?
EDIT: I'd also note that in the book Surveillance Capitalism, Zuboff discusses how Pokemon Go was seen in investor circles as a successful demonstration of manipulating masses of people to go to commercial spaces by luring them with imaginary characters. This sent market caps soaring. When I saw this headline, I immediately thought that this is them doing that with maps, but in a PR friendly way.
Google themselves do this with their shared branding under the google umbrella.
Companies that want the upside of this branding need to accept the downsides too.
Do you expect people to believe in their good will?
I recognize that they have been caught with their pants down with things like altering search results [1], but making broad speculative claims like this about the real world without any substantiation whatsoever is unfair and alarmist.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-google-interferes-with-its-...
Alleging that they're actually doing that is one thing, but simply recognizing that they can do it and have a potential incentive is another and I think that is clear.
I suppose it is not _entirely_ out of the realm of possibility, but I'd be willing to bet that they won't end up taking that "route".