Google Gives World Bank Map Maker Data Distribution Privileges

I saw some tweets about this last week and an odd op-ed in the Times (Directions Worth a Click), but now the offical word is out. Google announced the partnership on its Google Lat Lon Blog and the World Bank put out a press release. Sadly, there is already some really confused coverage of the topic (I'm looking at you ReadWriteWeb!) so let's get the facts. From the blog post:

Under this agreement, the World Bank will act as a conduit to make Google Map Maker source data more widely and easily available to government organizations in the event of major disasters, and also for improved planning, management, and monitoring of public services provision.

...

World Bank partner organizations, which include government and United Nations agencies, will be able to contact World Bank offices for possible access to the Google Map Maker data for their various projects. World Bank country offices in Kenya, South Sudan, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Zambia, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Moldova, Mozambique, Nepal, and Haiti plan to pilot the Map Maker agreement.

Now, let's address some possible confusion. The data is Google's. It's not open to the world under a free data license like OpenStreetMap is. Google makes its data tiles available via its APIs (with have their own restrictions and sometimes, fees). The Map Maker data is not open source (because that license is for software). Oh, and Google's mapping APIs are not open source either!

What i'm curious about it how the World Bank will decide if a requestor can have access to the data. Is it only during an emergency? Or when one is expected? Or is is for longterm planning for such emergencies? In either case, with a positive decision, I guess data would be delivered in KML. It's my recall that in the past there were times Google directly made that data available to certain responders during an emergency. I see this an an extension of that good deed.

The other thing I'm curous about is under what sort of terms (license) Google/The World Bank will hand over the data. WIll it be sharable to NGOs? To citizens? Can it be used on say Esri software?

Now, all those questions are moot if these countries choose to use OpenStreetMap, now in transition to an ODBL license, but with a very open one (Creative Commons) now. I'd prefer The World Bank go with a more open solution like OpenStreetMap so even more people can help in building these maps and using them for good. But, the Bank went another way. Maybe one day Google and/or The World Bank will chose an opener solution.

NGAC Delays Action on FGDC Until April Meeting

Joe Francica covered NGAC's suggested reorganization of FGDC in its Innovatieve Strategies paper (Directions Magazine). The topic was revisited at the NGAC January 12 meeting.

From the meeting summary:

“The National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC) will defer final action on the Innovative Strategies paper [ppt] until the April NGAC meeting. The Subcommittee will consider recent developments and feedback from Anne Castle, Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), and other NGAC members in developing the next version of the paper. The Subcommittee will work with FGDC staff to develop an interactive process to refine the recommendations.”

- Geodata Policy Blog

- Meeting Summary (pdf)

Free Mosaic for Illinois County and other Government GIS News

Phillip K. Mol of G-1 Aerial Surveys has offered to replace a 1978 aerial mosaic that hangs in the Bureau County, IL Court House. He does such work for about $1000 but will give the county a new one for free. No, there will be no new pics - he'll assemble it from IDNR and USGS orthoquads that date to 2005. But, he does want his company to get credit on the image.

- News Tribune

The City of Indio [CA] has been approved to receive grant funding in the amount of $47,000 from the California Office of Traffic Safety to implement an automated traffic collision and tracking program with Geographic Information System (GIS) capabilities. "This is a significant upgrade and modernization of how we'll be able to prevent collisions and make Indio's roads safer. This program will greatly assist the city in proactively reducing the number of reported traffic collisions city wide, said Indio's Mayor Glenn Miller.

- My Desert

As many as 56 medical marijuana facilities in Colorado are located within 1,000 feet of a school, according to an I-News analysis of school addresses and licenses issued to more than 700 medical marijuana facilities statewide.

Federal and state laws require a 1000 foot buffer. So, the feds are cracking down as they recently did in California. GIS was part of the analysis.

- Inewsnetwork.org

Forget OSM and Google Maps, Hillsborough, NJ is using GreenMap.org for its community mapping efforts.

- Hillsborough Patch