Google Considers China's "Web Mapping License"

eldavojohn writes "Back in May, China rolled out new laws requiring online mapping services to be 'certified' by the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping. The laws appear to go into effect this month. Today an AFP article outlines Google's consideration of these rules and notes that it's unlikely Google will meet the qualifications to become certified as all of its servers holding the mapping data are outside of China. The AFP also reported that 'Foreign firms wanting to provide mapping and surveying services in China are required to set up joint ventures or partnerships with local firms.' Unless large changes are made, Google's services might get a lot more stunted as China regulates onward."

Comments

Re:Wait! -- What's that?

[MightyMartian]

Frankly I'm beginning not to care. There's enough Chinese that if they got the guts tomorrow they could wipe out the regime, including the PLA, in about fifteen minutes (there would probably be a few tens of million dead, but Mao killed more than that with his incredibly retarded economic policies during the 1950s). People too cowardly to tear every Communist Party member's head off deserve the kind of rule the Party gives them.

Re:Good ol protectionism

[Weezul]

If so, they're just doing their jobs, more likely their aiding industrial espionage.

In all seriousness, Google can and should file a WTO complaint against China here.

Re:Some Additional Speculation

[religious freak]

Whether the motivation is espionage or "encouraging growth of domestic companies", the results are similar. China has no problems bending the laws to benefit their companies at the expense of foreign ones.

Ok... that's their right as a sovereign nation, but I'd again point out that seeing the Chinese economy as a panacea of growth and opportunity will turn sour at some point in the future as firms wake up and understand how a monolithic government like China views them and the concept of "rule of law". Top down economies and societies have a relatively short shelf life; the Soviet Union proved that. When you have a small group of elites deciding the go forward path of any large economy, the results will be unstable... as the mistakes of these elites compound expect China to cannibalize more foreign business interests. I have no idea when this will happen, but I'd bet a few bucks that it will happen eventually.

Espionage my ass...

[IBitOBear]

It's about control. They aren't trying to "find out" how Google does google maps, they are trying to create an in-country choke point. This choke point will choke the money from leaving the country _and_ choke the information reaching the citizens.

Imagine if you were the Bureau of Stuff of Some Country, and you could take 50% of the profit on every enterprise taking place on the internet in Some Country. Imagine that you can do it by letting random enterprises do random things, and then only attach yourself once a random thing had proven profitable. This is the money half of the equation.

Now imagine you are the Bureau of No of Some Country, and you could interpose yourself at the source of each new flow of information instead of needing a "wall" to selectively keep a flood of random Yes from entering your country. You could pre-impose your No well before it became a possibility.

The control item is particularly important here because you cannot _firewall_ Google maps selectively.

Say you are a Chinese dude, and you know that "something prohibited" is right north of something else. you can get that map of something prohibited by searching for that something else and then scrolling around. If china can require the information be brokered locally, the "Mass Government Grave" won't be blacked out or filtered, it will be listed as "Xue's Farm" or "Rocky Hillside Funtime Panda Reserve". Likewise for the "Comrades of the Party Beer Volcano and Free Hooker Forest".

The problem with censoring maps by exclusion is that even the holes provide information. If you cannot control and _edit_ a map at the source, you cannot _believably_ obscure what you want obscured.