Free Maps for the World more

Free maps for the world, but at what price? By Javier Carranza Tresoldi, international consultant and content manager at GeoCensos.com It is currently possible to have free access to abundant online geographical information using very good solutions. From global projects with widespread impact as Google Maps or Bing to other more technical and specialized as ArcGis.com and OpenStreetMap, users feel at ease when it comes to know and update remote places in the world. Despite this, these web pages only allow users to display information, not to actually operate data, besides dealing with a strong constraint on the quality and quantity of usable information. The information that these systems have on the geoid, the so called geo - information, is not obtained from a simple map as those hanging in school classrooms. Online maps are the result of many ingredients: overlapping digital satellite images, many processing tasks, scans of other maps and most of all consultations to geographers and local citizens who provide information that is not easily produced from a satellite or aerial photo. Google Map Maker is a solution oriented to “neo geographers"; i.e. Internet users and local volunteers who cooperate enriching online maps. It is a service launched by Google in June 2008 to cover certain regions of the world in which geographical data are hard to get. Given that data and compositions of their maps are copyrighted material, Google "liberates" their Google Maps to certain communities of geographers or plain citizens in certain territories. The aim of the project is to have a greater amount of good quality data to be published and be used in the service. Its advantages are quite significant, considering that the initiative can help out Governments managing little or no resources at all available for the planning of basic public services such as water supplies, local security, schools or basic health clinics. It also promotes private enterprise that can plan logistical routes, for example, the location of a store or the construction of a building. Finally, the application allows citizens to enrich their knowledge about the territory and enable tourists to benefit from information about locations that would not be there otherwise. Not considering, of course, the invaluable contribution that this means for non-governmental organizations, researchers and many Internet users. Already a project of practical altruism. Unlike OpenStreetMap, a similar project which allows mapping collaboration and gives data licensing, Google requires to partners in their mapping projects to grant a "... a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, license free of royalties and not exclusive to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, (...), distribute and create derivative works from the submission of user". Paradoxically requires a form to request downloads of data although not allowing operative access to users in order to program their own maps with the generated data The far reaching fame of Map Maker has attracted the World Bank´s attention. The institution approved less than a month ago a partnership with Google to ensure that their data are accessible to all NGOs in disaster situations, the same as to United Nations agencies. This forthcoming partnership seeks to include data produced by the effort of users all around the world on locations where key geographic objects are -especially for emergencies - such as hospitals and water sources or secondary roads. This commendable effort of the technological global Commonwealth raises however some disturbing questions: who owns the rights to these maps generated by so many people in key locations? What happens if some of those neo geographers place incorrect information? Is there any independent institution which could modify misleading data? And other questions as well. No doubt it's a giant step in the history of technology in the service of humanity. However, as most progress meant to have great impact, you need a good deal of checks and balances for its governance. Time and Google has the floor.