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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.
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!
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.
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.
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?
it would be hard to imagine an incentive for them to do so.
I'll disagree. Once all competing companies in a space achieve parity for a particular feature that isn't getting any better, there really isn't any reason for them to work separately any longer. After all, at that point the front-runners would have lost their competitive advantage, so they'll never see any gain against their competitors come from further investment in that feature. Spending money on that feature would simply be the cost to tread water against their competition, without any ability to actually get ahead.
At that point, why not open the data up? If you can externalize the cost by dumping it on society or, if nothing else, split the cost among everyone in the industry, why wouldn't you? It doesn't cost you anything competitively and it would significantly reduce your costs, allowing you to spend more time and money on the areas where they can help you get ahead better. Plus, if you're the one leading that charge towards openness, you get to define the de facto standard, meaning you can be ahead of everyone else in supporting/do less work to support the new thing.
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?
How many Millions of dollars did these companies invest in their mapping data, so their services will have some advantage over their competition?
While I understand the value of shared Map info, but what is in it for these companies. And besides the big tech companies, what about the normal Map Makers who have copy-written their maps.
If the UK think this is useful information, then is should attempt to buy the data, vs encourage or force them to give it up.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Why the hell isn't the second option not good? PLease explain and leave the 'govarnmant baaaad'-shit out of it.
LOL, that's like saying, "Please explain why forced labor is not good, and leave the "slavery bad" shit out of it. That's an unreasonable constraint, given that the government is the only entity capable of such coercion.
This just sounds like a case of the tragedy of the commons waiting to happen. No one is going to have any reason to invest in updating the resource. If several companies want to spend large sums of money trying to make better and better maps because they think it's valuable, let them go ahead and do so. As the OP pointed out, there's already OpenStreetMap that anyone can commit to. If it isn't as good as the the maps from Google and others, that just shows you why the model of letting them all compete against each other works out better in the end.
LOL, that's like saying, "Please explain why forced labor is not good, and leave the "slavery bad" shit out of it.
Not really. Slavery is inherently bad, so an explanation of "it is wrong because it is slavery and slavery is wrong" works. Government, on the other hand, is not inherently bad, so saying "it is wrong because the government is doing it" makes as much sense as Trump's "it is wrong because Obama did it" stance.
:)
And if you think government is inherently bad, I will gladly help fund you a one-way trip to Somalia.
Not always. Take the phrase "I don't not like it!" or "I don't dislike it!". It doesn't mean I like it, it means something in between dislike and like. English is complex and subtle at times. Double negatives serve a function.
Why the hell isn't the second option not good? PLease explain and leave the 'govarnmant baaaad'-shit out of it.
LOL, that's like saying, "Please explain why forced labor is not good, and leave the "slavery bad" shit out of it. That's an unreasonable constraint, given that the government is the only entity capable of such coercion.
Great example - it took a strong federal government to end slavery in the US, because the invisible hand of a free market sure as hell wasnt getting it done, or fixing company towns, or the railroads, or the banks. But this is different because on a computer.