The Vancouver Sun: Google gets data for free, B.C. gets a bill
Subheader: "Government pays for licences after tech giant given free information". (My suggestion: "All your data are belong to us.")
Summary: Vancouver City government gives to Google tons of free high-resolution spatial data. Gets a handful of Google Earth Pro licenses in return. Licenses expire after one year, so government has to pay to keep using them. And that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Excerpt:
"Google received the province's high-resolution, one-metre to one-pixel satellite imagery, which it used to dramatically sharpen the aerial images of B.C. on Google Earth and Google Maps.
This photo below, courtesy of the Government of B.C., shows the Province's high resolution imagery provided to Google on the left and previously existing imagery on the right.The government also agreed to convert its numerous databases on water, air quality, topography, fish, land ownership, land use, mining, parks, tourism and wildlife into the Google Earth format. Google does not physically possess that data; instead, the province spends time and money to retool its information into a format readable by Google and Microsoft mapping software."
Read the full Vancouver Sun article here. (via the All Points Blog).
Posted by Atanas Entchev at 7/14/2010 11:11 AM 
Categories: Data, Business, Maps, Software, GIS, Government, Online Mapping, accuracy, Google Earth, Google
Tags: Data BC Vancouver British Columbia Business Maps Software GIS Government Online Mapping accuracy Google Earth Google
Categories: Data, Business, Maps, Software, GIS, Government, Online Mapping, accuracy, Google Earth, Google
Tags: Data BC Vancouver British Columbia Business Maps Software GIS Government Online Mapping accuracy Google Earth Google
One could also say "Vancouver City Government tricks Google into serving up massive amounts of GIS data online to the public for free."
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Sure. But Google's business interests are aligned with serving massive amounts of GIS data online to the public for free, so no tricking was necessary. In addition, Google was already serving up massive amounts of GIS data online to the public for free, so replacing one dataset with another only increases the quality of the Google product, at no extra cost to Google.
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It most certainly does cost Google money to both prep and serve up the data. Think how much Vancouver would have to pay someone to host this data. Google is doing it for free. I am not saying they have no business stake, but let's give them some credit. How many other companies would serve up gigabytes or terabytes of data for free? The data prep, bandwidth, and storage costs all add up.
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I should add that I think there are some real risks on relying entirely on Google for serving up one's data. I just don't see cost as one of those risks. As many cities find themselves in financial struggles having a private company taking care of your web mapping for next to nothing, providing services to citizens is a good deal.
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Agreed. Lest my comment is totally misconstrued, let me state clearly: I am not anti-Google, nor am I anti-business. I am a small-business owner myself.
My primary market is municipal government. This post (and this blog in general) aims to inform my clients and prospects about all sides of an issue, then let them draw their own conclusions.
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I suppose another issue is whether or not Google's practices are anti-competitive.
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I have been promoting municipal GIS for over sixteen years. A typical justification for municipal government inaction has been: "The county will do it for us" or "The state will do it for us." Now we have a new one: "Google will do it for us."
All I'm trying to say is: Whatever Google is going to do, they will do it FOR GOOGLE, not for you.
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Keep in mind - Google is first and foremost an advertising company. Everything they do (mostly) is for revenue.
It's good that Vancouver found a way to get their data out to the public - but the same thing could have been accomplished by pushing the data into OpenStreetMap.
I'm pretty sure the data collected by Vancouver was tax payer funded. Now the tax payers are increasing Google's bottom line. That is a bit harsh sounding - but I think ultimately true.
I love everyone - from Google, OSM, ESRI, etc, etc. I love getting GIS data into the hands of the people it needs to benefit. I don't think this was the best way. I wouldn't consider this a win/win situation.
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Open Street Map is great, but the end user base is quite small compared to Google Earth/Maps. Why not just give the data to everyone who wants to serve it up for free. With respect to the taxpayer data I have a hard time thinking of many private GIS projects where some taxpayer data was not used for profit.
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