may the force be with you

Yahoo engineers apparently couldn't help themselves. The beta of the new Yahoo Maps for a short while listed "The Dude's Fish Store" at 1600 Amphiteatre Parkway in Mountain View, CA.

The address is better known as the headquarters for Yahoo's competitor Google.

Yahoo claimed to have further information (broken link here; screenshot on the left) about the store, listing hours of operation (only open in summer) and an assortment of fish, hamsters, gold fish, snakes and spiders. Languages spoken are German and Russian.

The store even has a basic website (screenshot on the right) featuring a picture of a collection of cheeses and claiming that "Our fish NEVER die!". The link page offers a link to the "Bestest page" (Google) and Stanford University.

"Need directions? Go to Google Maps", the site claims, with the link leading to a Yahoo map instead.

The phone number listed is for guy named Ruben Suterwitz (or that's what it sounds like on his voicemail). His voicemail gives the option to get assistance, forwarding callers to the Google front desk.

There are several hints pointing to a Google prank. The search engine's co-founder Sergey Brin was born in Russia and both he and his buddy Larry Page were students at Stanford when they founded the company.

The 'fish store's' website by the way lists a different address on Middlefield Road. Nothing is listed at that address.

And the foolishness at Yahoo doesn't stop with the alleged fish store. The Yahoo Local information on Google itself points to the website of Google Belgium (screenshot on the right). One of the two comments claim that the company has a "great cafeteria".

UPDATE: The information on the fish shop has been removed by Yahoo. The screenshot for the Local listing comes from the Google Desktop cache, causing it to look less than perfect.

source:http://www.siliconvalleysleuth.com/2005/11/yahoo_maps_pran.html