A North Carolina lesbian couple says their son found a homophobic slur on a Google Map of their street.
"My son was on Google Maps at school when he (searched) 'street view' for our address and it said, 'Fagits live here,'" said Jennifer Mann, whose partner moved about four years ago into the Canton home where she grew up and shares with their three children and a grandchild.
Their driveway was shown on the map labeled with the slur, which the couple said remained online for about a month.
The 39-year-old Mann said she contacted Google to remove the slur, but she said she was “put on hold forever and ever and ever.”
A Google spokesman said the slur was removed Wednesday after the Citizen-Times contacted the company.
The couple’s driveway has no name registered with Haywood County, and a spokeswoman for the county said the label did not originate there.
The spokeswoman said county officials must approve every street name, and she said private driveways are not typically named.
"Of course we would never have approved anything like that," said Kathy Hoglen, addressing coordinator for Haywood County. "We don't allow crude or offensive names of any kind."
Mann and McDaniel suspect the slur was added by a Google employee or a hacker.
McDaniel had a window sticker showing two pink deer face-to-face on her vehicle parked outside when the Google street-mapping car drove past over the summer.
Street view imagery and locations are regularly updated, and the company allows individuals to request the blurring of some aspects of images – including license plates and other private identifying features.
Watch this video report posted online by the Citizen-Times:
