Google's Ghost Town

Mystery of Argleton, the 'Google' town that only exists online

"Argleton, a 'phantom town' in Lancashire that appears on Google Maps and online directories but doesn't actually exist, has puzzled internet experts.

The town appears on Google Maps in the middle of fields close to the M58 motorway, just south of Ormskirk.
Its 'presence' means that online businesses that use data from the software have detected it and automatically treated it as a real town in the L39 postcode area. An internet search for the town now brings up a series of home, job and dating listings for people and places "in Argleton", as well as websites which help people find its nearest chiropractor and even plan jogging or hiking routes through it."

And yes, Google Earth still has the Thing in the middle of Greenland, resembling a rusty spaceship melting out of the ice.


ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) Approves Domain Names We Can't Type

"This is a bad day for the English language, after ICANN approved non-Latin characters for use in Internet domain names. Having invented the Internet--40 years ago yesterday--the U.S. has given away whatever advantage it offers English-speakers.

This was bound to happen after the U.S. recently recanted on its "ownership" of the Internet in a new agreement with ICANN, the Internet's primary governing body. At one level, I am happy that Internet users around the world will soon have domain names in their own character sets.
"The coming introduction of non-Latin characters represents the biggest technical change to the Internet since it was created four decades ago," ICANN Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush said in a statement.
"Right now Internet address endings are limited to Latin characters--A to Z. But the Fast Track Process is the first step in bringing the 100,000 characters of the languages of the world online for domain names."