Private vs. Publicly funded Base Maps – Is Google Earth a Public Trust?
In speaking about having a common operating picture and an available imagery data store, Mark Eustis of the Department of Homelands Security’s Geospatial Management Office said during his presentation at the ESRI FED UC meeting that, "the most common operating pictures in the world are in Microsoft and Google."
Is there something a bit "off kilter" when federal agencies talk about using Google Earth (GE) or Microsoft Virtual Earth (VE) as their standard for a common operating picture (COP)? The reliance on a privately funded base map and imagery database for mission critical applications in homeland security and emergency management draws into question just how much Google or Microsoft have assumed the role of a public trust. In fact, the money that either company is investing in developing geospatial data for their mapping platforms runs into the tens of millions. If the market has spoken, in this case the federal government, then the market doesn’t see any conflict using a system that is essentially funded by advertising. Are we not rendering The National Map as obsolete and do federal agencies differentiate the substance of each? Is the fact that GE or VE has become more accessible, easy to use, and more comprehensive drawn a comparison with federally-funded base maps that are sometimes bogged down with too many constituent requirements?
The idea that private companies have become a public trust is not new. Indeed, Microsoft Windows could be considered a public trust, or a world trust, since so many of the world’s computers run Windows. But is this case different? Agencies buy the Windows operating system software and assume a level of support from the vendor. In the case of GE or VE some federal agencies are relying on an open and free platform in which to ingest data. Licensing of APIs or enterprise editions was not mentioned and thus was not entirely clear from Eustis’ remarks. But GE and VE are now so ingrained as providing one of the most widely used COPs that agencies may want to address some of the long-term ramifications.
