Earth to South Korea

The news that Google has gone from a small Silicon Valley start-up to a security concern for South Korea should not surprise anyone who has been following the gist of recent media coverage of its move into telephone calls and goodness knows what else.

Yes, Google appears to want to leave its multicoloured mark all over the world. Its latest excursion is into bilateral relations between Washington and Seoul, which will this week deal with the concerns of the South Korean president, Roh Moo-hyun, that the global satellite mapping service Google Earth could provide overhead images of the presidential blue palace and military sites to his enemies in the Communist North.