Data advocacy group wants Apple and others to give away mapping data in UK
Data advocacy group Open Data Institute (ODI) has filed a report with the UK government suggesting large companies like Apple, Google and Uber should be compelled to share their collective mapping data to help smaller companies innovate.
Apple pedestrian data gathering
Large tech firms have created a monopoly on mapping data which has stifled innovation from small companies and startups, the ODI argues. Opening this information up for others to use would not only grant wide access to more comprehensive mapping data, but would allow smaller companies to iterate on their respective technologies. Drone delivery services and self-driving cars were offered as examples of products that would benefit from open map data.
The report concludes geospatial data is a "vital resource in the digital age" and used throughout most aspects of life. Between $7 billion and $14 billion could be generated for the country if mapping data was shared, according to a previous UK government estimate.
"The large companies are becoming more like data monopolies and that doesn't give us the best value from our data," Jeni Tennison, chief executive of the Open Data Institute, said in a statement to The Verge.
ODI is not an unknown organization in the UK, and carries some clout of its own. It was founded in-part by the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, alongside an AI professor out of the University of Oxford, Nigel Shadbolt.
There is no word on what the UK government plans to do, if they are mulling a decision to act on the matter or if there is much demand for such a change.
Apple has been investing in a ground-up rework of its first-party mapping product for years. The project involves vans outfitted with specialized equipment that initially surveyed streets in California before spreading across the U.S. and into other countries. More recently, the company started collecting pedestrian data from person-mounted positioning systems to improve walking directions and capture previously undocumented pathways.
A considerable behind-the-scenes effort parses raw data using specialized software, the results of which are digested, refined and ultimately pushed out to users in Maps.
Apple pedestrian data gathering
Large tech firms have created a monopoly on mapping data which has stifled innovation from small companies and startups, the ODI argues. Opening this information up for others to use would not only grant wide access to more comprehensive mapping data, but would allow smaller companies to iterate on their respective technologies. Drone delivery services and self-driving cars were offered as examples of products that would benefit from open map data.
The report concludes geospatial data is a "vital resource in the digital age" and used throughout most aspects of life. Between $7 billion and $14 billion could be generated for the country if mapping data was shared, according to a previous UK government estimate.
"The large companies are becoming more like data monopolies and that doesn't give us the best value from our data," Jeni Tennison, chief executive of the Open Data Institute, said in a statement to The Verge.
ODI is not an unknown organization in the UK, and carries some clout of its own. It was founded in-part by the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, alongside an AI professor out of the University of Oxford, Nigel Shadbolt.
There is no word on what the UK government plans to do, if they are mulling a decision to act on the matter or if there is much demand for such a change.
Apple has been investing in a ground-up rework of its first-party mapping product for years. The project involves vans outfitted with specialized equipment that initially surveyed streets in California before spreading across the U.S. and into other countries. More recently, the company started collecting pedestrian data from person-mounted positioning systems to improve walking directions and capture previously undocumented pathways.
A considerable behind-the-scenes effort parses raw data using specialized software, the results of which are digested, refined and ultimately pushed out to users in Maps.
Comments
Apple: Let’s let Google and Uber gather the data. We’ll just use theirs.
Google: Sorry, we’re going to stop gathering and use Apple’s and Uber’s data.
Uber: Don’t look at us. We’re thinking we’ll use your data. You two have deeper pockets to spend on gathering.
In ASEAN locations, we have communities that willingly participate in free mapping efforts. Large firms such as Garmin even collaborate with these communities as they are frequently quick to update POIs and new Roads, changes to traffic controls/flows. Examples of such communities are MalSingMap (aka MSM) and MalFreeMap (aka MFM).
If the UK government allows this to go through its legislation, it will only deter large firms from investing their R&D dollars in UK. Which business will invest in something on a long term if it is not able to make revenue out of that investment?
ODI just doesn’t talk business sense at all.
I bet there are a lot of smaller companies that would like to get access to Google’s data on searches. That would probably be a big help to some of them. Maybe ODI should ask for that.
What about Amazon’s customer habit/buying data? Maybe save a few of those mom and pop shops or help a new startup know where to focus. Come on, ODI, stop slacking!
corporate socialism (socialise the costs, privatise the profits) never ends well.
Ordance Survey charges businesses for use of the more useful mapping layers such as land parcelling, water networks, and of course, the Topography layer. Oh, and the address database isn’t free either.
https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/products/finder.html
Source: me
I’ve worked on a couple of government-based land mapping projects in the past.
What you find with government departments is that the free stuff isn’t suitable for business use, so then you have to negotiate a license. I’ve also found that the “open” font the government uses for websites (and traffic signs) cannot be uses on sites outside the government domain. So it’s not really open. Disappointing, because it’s a very nice font. However, it cost money to develop it, so I don’t see why they should give it away at the taxpayers’ expense.
Likewise, it costs to map the U.K., so businesses should be charged for its use. (Which they are).
Likewise, it costs businesses to do their own mapping, so I don’t see why it should be given away at the shareholders’ expense.
Mapping data is an asset that Apple (and other companies) invested in creating. They own that asset and should not be forced by Robin Hood governments to give it away for free.
See also: “Anti Dog Eat Dog Rule” (Ayn Rand) for the immorality of this approach
The proposal is not sensible. A company (eg Google, Apple) invests a whole lot of money to create a competitive advantage (ie make their products more useful to their customers that their competitors' products are). They're then expected to give it away so all their competitors can use, thus removing the competitive advantage that was the reason for investing the money in the first place.
Why would any company invest in mapping?
What innovation is being blocked by the current situation?