Cartographic censorship is the deliberate modification of publicly available maps in order to disguise, remove, or obfuscate potentially strategic locations or buildings, such as military bases, power plants or transmitters. Sensitive objects and places have been removed from maps since historic times, sometimes as a disinformation tactic in times of war, and also to serve competitive political and economic interests, such as during the Age of Discovery when strategic geographic information was highly sought after. In modern times requests for censorship are sent to Google Earth for certain sites that are deemed to pose security risks for national governments.