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'Google, Apple, and Uber Should Be Forced To Share Their Mapping Data' (technologyreview.com)
The UK government should encourage companies like Apple, Google, and Uber to publish more map data to help the development of technologies like driverless cars and drones, according to a new report by the Open Data Institute. From a report: This sort of data, which includes addresses and city boundaries, fuels tons of everyday services, from parcel and food deliveries to apps like Google Maps and Uber. Internet giants are sitting on top of vast amounts of geospatial data, but it is largely inaccessible to others. The ODI argues it should be as open as possible as a part of "national infrastructure." Analyzing map data can help communities and organizations make decisions across a vast range of sectors -- for example, how to improve access to a school or hospital.
Encouraged or forced?
One is a good idea to get behind, the other less so.
The TFA sounds like a RFP. They want the data to be free, but are open to paying millions of pounds in licensing fees for the all the stuff that's actually required to consume the data.
>> "There are opportunities to explore alternative business models that will help to ensure sustainable access to open geospatial data. For example: charging for warranties and quality assurance, charging for support and consulting around use of data, charging for API access and/or tailored online services to enable on-demand use of data within specific sectors or types of application..."
Being "encouraged" is hardly likely to influence the corporate players to giving up their intellectual property for free - it would be hard to imagine an incentive for them to do so. But why bother? OpenStreetMap is open access crowd sourced geospatial data, and has grown from being a curiosity to a major player for such data. Wikipedia flourished despite dire predictions from companies like Encyclopedia Brittanica, and look who won that battle. OpenStreetMap is a Wikipedia for maps, and has gone from being an interesting "curiosity and experiment" to a major player.
Those companies expended resources to get that data.
Perhaps they should be asking government, who built the majority of the roads, and created the plans and surveys, which should be better than anything which can be collected by simply driving around.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
It's interesting that they call out technology companies about this, and never mention logistic companies who, arguably, have a far better data set because their business so deeply relies on it.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I've no version 11.0++ & gweihir KNOWS u IMPERSONATE me https://it.slashdot.org/commen... c6gunner proves it https://linux.slashdot.org/com... he forgot to SUBMIT as AC & using his registered 'lusrname' instead (because he tried to mock me both BEFORE & after I FAIRLY challenged him to show he's done better work - he had ZERO).
& NO WAY I'd "cry" like you "ne'er-do-wells" on /. (TROLL /.ers, not all) OR post on hosts offtopic.
YOU HELPED ME https://science.slashdot.org/c... (& you quit trying to make me look bad trying to "tell lies" on hosts as "ME" IN YOUR IMPERSONATIONS of me e.g. https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... as regards Intel speculative execution attack? Hosts PREVENT 'EM)
APK
P.S.=> I KNOW the 2nd to last link above's KILLING YOU - YOU ACTUALLY HELPED ME getting me to see if hosts stop more than portsmash (& Meltdown + Spectre too) & "lo & behold" - hosts WORK on 'em - U LOSE (& U STOPPED TRYING IT in your impersonations of me) .... apk
This is 17 levels of dumb. For goodness sakes, collecting this data is expensive. If the government forces the companies to just hand it all over, then they are going to stop collecting it. Then we will all have really good and quickly and permanently obsolete maps.
If the government wants the data they should create a whole department that is tasked with doing nothing but creating and improving maps. (Wait...)
Is money.
Google et al, scum buckets and hives of villany tho they all are, spent money to collect, organize, store, and maintain that data. If a government wants to license that data on behalf of it's citizens for whatever mutually agreed upon price, more power to them. If they want to dictate that the information be given up or seized just bc they say so, well, thats how revolutions get started as Britain learned a couple centuries ago.
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/
Open Street Map is one project that is open source and does a good job providing maps. I think people just look to name brands as a easy means to access maps because all those platforms do their own mapping. Google, Apple, Microsoft all have mapping apps and so why do they need to share? No doubt services requiring good mapping is building and the sources with the best coverage and accuracy will win. Which is why sharing probably isn't going to happen.
telling the US brands what should be done with data the US brands collected.
Its "inaccessible to others" as the US brands had to spend a lot of time and their own money to collect all that data.
The UK gov can create its own data sets and give them away to any project they want for free as "national infrastructure".
What is it with gov and bureaucrats need to take from the private sector and give to competitors?
Should the UK gov want to provide data sets to innovate new start ups, create a UK gov backed open set and let anyone use the data for anything.
Start spending gov money in the UK on UK projects that provide data to UK brands.
Don't go full tyranny and demand US brands give their years of hard work over to the UK for "free".
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Since it's "national infrastructure", and the data is just sitting out there for anyone to collect for free, then let the government collect the data and give it away.
Good mapping data is expensive and labor intensive to collect, and is a huge competitive advantage to the company that invests the resources to do it well. It should remain with those that own it.
But doesn't Google basically already do this via their Maps API? I don't think the developers have access to the full dataset as a whole, but anything they want to do with the data in an application can be achieved without limitation (afaik).
So while I could well be wrong, pretty sure google maps is already open to the makers of driverless cars. Now if those companies want to use that data for their own purpose and improve it, yeah they are gonna have to pony up
Forced? Let me guess.....for the common good?
Whatever happened to property rights?
If the information age, data is a commodity that requires significant investment to produce. Therefore, how would this be any different than a fully-marxist state seizing of the means of production?
No concept of common good.
"The Open Data Institute is a non-profit private company limited by guarantee, based in the United Kingdom. Founded by Sirs Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt in 2012, the ODIâ(TM)s mission is to connect, equip and inspire people around the world to innovate with data"
It's Tim and his mate being silly.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
So what you're saying is that there is an opportunity for someone to copy that open data to a fast server and provide something of value?
You could either monetize it somehow, whether via a $5/year subscription to the fast service or ads or whatever, or just pay the bill from their own pocket to provide a public service.
These companies paid (made large investments) to collect this geospatial data.
If the government wants the data "nationalized", shouldn't the government make contracts to pay the companies to give away the data they collected?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
We should defintely force other people or companies to do everything I want.
No, other people or companies should *not* be allowed to force *me* to do what they want.
It would be a shame if something happened to it.
How magnanimous of the UK government to give away property that does not belong to them.
Ordnance Survey https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/ ... UK government owned company. Did maps way before Google, Uber, etc. And some of it is open.
Chances are Google etc made use of this government owned data that was made public. So makes sense that people pool resources together.
Stop all the "guvment bad" in the comments and follow the money.
From Wikipedia: Open Data Institute: Funding
"The ODI is part core-grant and part income-backed. £10m of public funds were pledged by the UK Technology Strategy Board to the ODI in 2012 (£2m/year over five years). A further $4,850,000 of funding has been secured via Omidyar Network. ODI derives its income from training, membership, research and development, services and events. In 2015, the balance between core-grant and income was approximately 50:50."
This is a non-profit lobbying group set up in part by UK government to create data sharing standards for corporations to follow. Asking for data for the people who started your group is no surprise.
The real question you should be asking is this: Share data with whom? How open is the "open" in ODI?
... you didn't answer the question about what law(s) were broken, only exclaim that you're happy when government changes the rules.
Reminds me of the Monty Python skit where the defendant was charged with "conspiracy to commit acts not normally considered illegal".
I'm Company X. Over the last number is years I've spent a lot of money building up a massive makiyng database, all at my own cost. I sell this data to people, cheaply, but still make enough money to help recoup the costs. It's not a cheap business.
Why, then, should I just give it all away for free?
Are you going to force Nestlé to give away chocolate for free? I don't think so, so why should I have to give you my product for free?
Given that Google's core mapping data is actually inferior (less detailed, less accurate) than the Ordnance Survey's, I'm not quite sure I see the point of this, unless there's more data that Google are not showing us.
In your IMPERSONATIONS of me (like u do now) saying what you thought "makes me look bad" e.g. https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... (like now)? You did me a favor & got me to look @ these closely:
1st - Hosts stop portsmash (blocking downloads of it) "You basically have to already be able to run your own evil code on a machine in order to PortSmash it." from https://www.theregister.co.uk/...
2nd hosts MAY prevent the OTHER forms of Intel CPU weakness per ACADEMIC RESEARCH I read:
SPECTRE "As an attempted mitigation for our JavaScript-based attack" https://spectreattack.com/spec...
MELTDOWN "We presented Meltdown, a novel software-based attack" https://meltdownattack.com/mel...
So like portsmash?
Academics NEEDED LOCAL CODE (like portsmash hosts can prevent) so hosts ALSO work vs. Spectre/Meltdown!
APK
P.S.=> 3rd strike "yer out" - U FAIL PORTFILTERING TESTS https://yro.slashdot.org/comme... (IF hosts could DO it I'd implement it in my work & I STOP THAT ERROR)... apk
In your IMPERSONATIONS of me (like u do now) saying what you thought "makes me look bad" e.g. https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... (like now)? You did me a favor & got me to look @ these closely:
1st - Hosts stop portsmash (blocking downloads of it) "You basically have to already be able to run your own evil code on a machine in order to PortSmash it." from https://www.theregister.co.uk/...
2nd hosts MAY prevent the OTHER forms of Intel CPU weakness per ACADEMIC RESEARCH I read:
SPECTRE "As an attempted mitigation for our JavaScript-based attack" https://spectreattack.com/spec...
MELTDOWN "We presented Meltdown, a novel software-based attack" https://meltdownattack.com/mel...
So like portsmash?
Academics NEEDED LOCAL CODE (like portsmash hosts can prevent) so hosts ALSO work vs. Spectre/Meltdown!
APK
P.S.=> 3rd strike "yer out" - U FAIL PORTFILTERING TESTS https://yro.slashdot.org/comme... (IF hosts could DO it I'd implement it in my work & I STOP THAT ERROR) ... apk
Y'know, since they have already corrupted copyright far beyond what it ever should have been, and thus this data isn't coming due between now and 2030-2040 like it should since it has all been collected since 2000.
Eminent domain with fair market valuation of the data seems acceptable.
It has only been a quarter century or so since virtually all map data came from governments. As computers reached a level of being able to pick routes and GPS became cheap, both needs and wants arose for expanded data. I can remember a few years in the 90s where applications that were technically possible were being held back for lack of that data. Many knew we needed it. It would be nice if the governments had stepped up and expanded their data for everyone's use in a timely fashion. They didn't.
The companies who had applications that could utilize the data to enough benefit to justify the billions in continuous expenditures necessary to collect it and keep it up to date did so. It would not be the least bit fair to then turn around and wipe out the benefits derived from their efforts by making the same data available to all.
A government grab of this data would be little different from a government announcing tomorrow that all entertainment in the country it oversees is now public domain and free for all to view or listen to at will. The public might cheer initially, but the industry would collapse. It would kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
At this point, it would not even be fair for the governments to step in with their own money, create an equivalent dataset including all of the imagery and analysis of that imagery, and then give it to the general public. The public wouldn't even desire the data if it weren't for the industry's risk-taking and developments that created the need for it.
they based their data on taxpayer provided data and don't contribute anything back willingly
so the UK will legislate to FORCE them to CONTRIBUTE back to the taxpayer funded systems
The People who really have the data are the MNOs
- Everyone has a phone
- Every new car has a cellular connection for telematics etc.
The MNOs know where everyone is, and when. And of course, GCHQ harvest all the MNO's metadata, so at least one part of the Govt has all the data already.
Apple, Google and Uber are just distractions.
What do you mean "collect it"? They built the damn thing. Council surveyor drawings are among the most accurate representation of street designs and addresses. Tax documents are the most accurate representation of registered businesses at each address.
They HAVE this data.
The Ordnance Survey should also have to share its mapping data with the public - most of which was gathered with public (taxation-funded) money!
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
The solution is quite simple: governments should feed all the geo data they have anyhow, collecting dust on some hard drive, into OpenStreetMap!
In theory, the government and municipalities already know exactly where each and every business is located, what it does, how it looks from the outside, if it passes health inspection, etc.
Same for almost any other kind of interesting Geodata. All that the governments have to do is feed this data into OpenStreetMap, or at the very least publish it on their websites in a CSV file or something.
Project, mapping data should be completely free and open to everyone. The corporate whores can shove a rusty rake up their ass if they don't like it.