There has been a rumor floating around this morning that Microsoft intentionally removed Apple’s current headquarters at 1 Infinite Loop from their satellite imagery of Cupertino. It’s not true.
The satellite photograph used by MSN Visual Earth is from U.S. Geological Survey and was taken on October 30, 1991. I called Apple’s Public Relations department and confirmed the current headquarters building was not built at this time. U.S. Geological Survey also has a photograph of the area from February 27, 2004 but it looks incomplete.
If you look at the pictures you will notice what looks like a construction center near the 280 freeway.
Conspiracy theory? No. But it does look like Microsoft and Google have different sources of satellite imagery. Bloggers should do more research instead of defaulting to conspiracy theories!