Google Maps briefly renamed office building for McCain

A Senate office building was temporarily renamed for the late senator John McCain on Google Maps.

When Web users typed the words “Russell Senate Office Building” into Google search, a map display brought up a location designated as the “McCain Senate Office Building.”

Days after McCain’s death on Saturday at age 81, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., proposed renaming the congressional building after the Arizona senator to honor his legacy as a Vietnam War POW and his more than three decades of service in Congress. But some Senate Republicans are resisting the idea of stripping the name of Sen. Richard Russell Jr., for whom the building is currently named. Russell was a Democratic senator for 38 years and led Southern opposition to civil rights as a segregationist. His record inspired previous efforts to rename the Russell building, but those initiatives failed.

Late Wednesday morning, Google Maps showed that the location listing had reverted to its proper name.

It’s not clear how or why the entry for the Russell building was renamed on the Google listing. The search giant told The Washington Post on Wednesday: “We empower people to contribute their local knowledge to the map, but we recognize that there may be occasional inaccuracies or premature changes suggested by users. When this happens, we work to address as quickly as possible. We have implemented a fix for this issue that is rolling out now.”

Web users can suggest edits to locations displayed on Google Maps, according to the Google Maps Help Web page: “You can tell us about incorrect business details, wrong road names, or other data errors on the map.”