Drawing blue over the island for 3-4 years and then letting it re-appear makes absolutely no sense for a coverup...

If there was something on that island they didn't want people seeing, they could simply not update the image and no-one would know. And it would draw far less attention to that island than removing it from the map all together.

But you know what does make sense? It could be what's known as a "fictitious entry" in order to serve as a copyright trap. And then it would make total sense to do it with some random uninhabited island no one will ever want to visit.

The idea is that if someone produces a new map during those years, and google thinks the creators just copied their data, all they need to do is check for Bouvet island and when it's not there in the other party's map, that is good evidence of copyright infringement they can use in court.

Not basing this assessment on anything but intuition... But the 2nd answer seems far more likely to me....

Drawing blue over the island for 3-4 years and then letting it re-appear makes absolutely no sense for a coverup...

If there was something on that island they didn't want people seeing, they could simply not update the image and no-one would know. And it would draw far less attention to that island than removing it from the map all together.

But you know what does make sense? It could be what's known as a "fictions entry" in order to serve as a copyright trap. And then it would make total sense to do it with some random uninhabited island no one will ever want to visit.

But the idea is that someone produces a new map during those years, and google thinks the creators just copied their data to make it, all they need to do is check for Bouvet island and when it's not there in the other party's map, that is good evidence of copyright infringement they can use in court.

Not basing this assessment on anything but intuition... But the 2nd answer seems far more likely to me....