5 ms·

I worked at Tele Atlas/TomTom until 10 years ago. There is literally nothing new in this announcement except that they are going to "steal" data from OSM now.

by fs111 4y ago

I worked at Tele Atlas/TomTom until 10 years ago. There is literally nothing new in this announcement except that they are going to "steal" data from OSM now. sensor derived data, user generated content, camera vans all of that is not new. All this existed when I left, so did the people mentioned in this announcement that are still running the show. I always hoped they would eventually realize that they need a fresh top management, but they seem to just keep doing the same old stuff with the same old people until the final collapse of the company.

ugh123 4y ago
How are they stealing? Are they breaking some kind of licensing agreement with OSM?
Popeye007 4y ago
There are three groups each with their strengths and weaknesses. One are the carmakers, OEM’s. Take for instance CARIAD, the Volkswagen software arm. They are a TomTom partner. Their strength is sensor data. There will be 40 million Volkswagen brand cars where the front camera sends data to the servers. Their problem is that they don’t have mapping expertise. They do want to build their own services on top of a base map. For instance all charging stations that are theirs. (ionity). Then you have tomtom. Their strength is AI and machine learning and how to fuse those vehicle sensor data in the map. Also they have a team of 1.000 mapping employees in Pune, India. Making edits every day and checking change reports with other data like sattelite imagery. Their challenge is that they need those data from car sensors (and they get them) Then there is obviously OSM. Where the strength is the wisdom of the community. But also a weakness that people can make mistakes and from time to time vandalism happens. In this new venture you get a best of both (or in this case 3) worlds. The India people in Pune can do quality checks on OSM data. For instance comparing with other sources. And their tools and AI can fuse sensor data from cars of tomtom partners. Those are Volkswagen group but also Stellantis (merger of Peugeot-Citroen and Fiat-Chrysler-Jeep), Toyota and others. The TomTom base map (lowest layar) will be provided to OSM. Forgot to mention one thing, which is Apple. TomTom gets their probe data which helps in street geometry and traffic. With the help of OSM TomTom now has a Japan map. Very important for carmakers in Japan. Big market. Because in Japan 80% of mobile phone users are iOS users (huge iPhone marketshare) this is an opportunity to get data from many sources together. Also from Japanese carmakers like Toyota who do research with TomTom on HD maps for autonomous driving and assisted driving (ADAS). This looks like a win-win-win for all three. Carmakers, TomTom and OSM. And a worry for Google Maps and HERE technologies.
afknewsagency 4y ago
10 years is quite a long time for things to change though. Sure many sources might have existed for a long time, but it sounds like the way the company is going to use them, how quickly it will turn them around will improve. It's not transactional per se any more, more real-time (depending on the specific use or update). As for the same management, depending on your perspective, that might be a sign of stability. Judging by the press release this morning, company has solid order book and is reporting a record 2.4 million euro automotive order book.
- pojzon 4y ago
  As someone who worked there over a year ago (no NDA on me anymore). Its still the same as person before you explains. TomTom is trying to create competition to HERE map making platform. And I agree a change id upper management is needed / despite new CTO being hired.
molly_radstowe 4y ago
How is it stealing data? Most geospatial companies use OSM data, with OSM's permission, and it's a smart thing to do b/c they have a great map. Why wouldn't a mapmaker work with OSM data?
- askldfjaliwejf 4y ago
  except google. They copied OSM data in the past, and used in their proprietary offering that includes reselling the data. A blatant offense of the OSM license. They were caught red handed in 2018 i think, and blamed on some contractors. But most interesting, despite this being a widely know fact for the mapping community, i can't find any mention of it anywhere today.
  - pietervdvn 4y ago
    As hardcore-OSMer: this is pure FUD. There are suspicions, but no hard proof has ever been found about this. However, there is a well-known (and non-problematic) case where OSM-data is used in GMaps. Some polish bus agency used OSM to create their GTFS-feeds, which were ingested into GMaps. Selecting the bus line will thus show an OSM-based line layer; but as that line layer is clearly attributed with OpenStreetMap, that is totally fine; both legal and ethical. See https://twitter.com/MapAmorePH/status/1453863816110952450?t=pBkd8DsSnfIL9E_37IvLwQ&s=19 https://twitter.com/MapAmorePH/status/1453863816110952450?t=...
  - mda 4y ago
    As someone who has some first hand knowledge in the area, Your claim is not correct.
- heed 4y ago
  I don’t know what OP meant by “steal” but the complicated thing with using OSM data as a mapmaker is that if you “derive” any other data source with it you have to make it available which means (as I understand it) you have to contribute it back to OSM. If TomTom was planning on conflating OSM data with other sources then in theory it hurts their business model because they will potentially have to make their entire map (or large parts of it) freely available in OSM. If they can somehow set up clean room conditions and keep all their other data sources physically separated from the OSM data then it might be avoided, but then how do you do the map conflation? And that would certainly impact how quickly they can make updates. Maybe they came up with some clever way to avoid having to contribute data back to OSM and that’s what OP means by “steal.”
netsectoday 4y ago
Do you know that Microsoft Bing maps also "steals" the OSM data? They did some very clever "reverse stealing" as well when they contributed back to the project by providing millions of accurate building footprints. Yes, I'm being sarcastic. It's a win-win situation when ANY large mapping group joins OSM. At the very least; they will accidentally contribute road-level improvements when they work with the data. I rely upon OSM data and need these large players throwing their weight behind this mapping system.
- olah_1 4y ago
  Now imagine if Tomtom and Microsoft both paid users for map improvements. That would be super cool. They could even make an app to submit the improvements and even show me ads, I don't care. I would still do it.
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    in practice you can't trust a bounty system like this, so the next best might be to sell your company products in such a way as to minimize the system friction between new sales, new data coming in from those new sales, and feeding back to the open ecosystem. In that latter case, you can't trust the company management, but to my mind .. that's the breaks
    - olah_1 4y ago
      > you can't trust a bounty system like this You mean the accuracy of the data? I guess that is why a lot of systems have “validators” or something like that in place. But it’s a problem with OSM and wikipedia in general.
- swores 4y ago
  I think you're missing the forrest for the trees here - they put "steal" in ""s because they know it's not stealing. The point of their comment was to criticise TomTom for not doing much interesting themselves, not to discuss the nuances of OSM. In this context, "steal" makes sense because it's something that TomTom can claim to be innovative with while actually the innovation credit belongs to OSM.
baggachipz 4y ago
Yeah but they changed their logo!
eecc 4y ago
That Riak based platform they presented eons ago at a Meetup in Amsterdam could have been a mind-blowing real-time traffic flow optimizer. But I think it just withered to an API for syncing your POIs across devices. SMH
revel 4y ago
Google Maps has one of the most abusive license practices I've seen; effectively they force every one of their competitors to use OSM. As a consequence, OSM is the default for every company in this space.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  A business decision regarding IP is not abuse.
  - beej71 4y ago
    Their non-abusive license forces everyone else in the space to use OSM. :)
  - ipsum2 4y ago
    Abusive means "extremely offensive and insulting", according to Google
    - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
      Only if you're part of the entitlement generation that expects everything to be free and nobody should be paid for their work.
      - franga2000 4y ago
        If it was about wanting everything to be free, Mapbox wouldn't be the most common non-Google map provider. Google's free tier is more generous and their data is usually better. A few points that particularly bother me: 1. Google gets a lot of this data from their users (both from traditional crowdsourcing and sneaky things like tracking Android phones) and then locks it up so you have to pay to use it. 2. The way they license their services forces you to stay in their ecosystem. For example you are only allowed to use Google Places Search on a Google Maps map. 3. There are APIs Google just doesn't provide for various reasons and because they "own" the data, everyone else has to start from scratch (or use OSM). There's no way to download some subset of the data for a one-time sum or even a subscription license and provide your own service on top of it. Yes, these things mostly fall into what people consider a company's freedom to do business however they like. But Google is more than just any random company and the data they gatekeep is more than just any random dataset.

by fs111 4y ago

ugh123 4y ago

How are they stealing? Are they breaking some kind of licensing agreement with OSM?

Popeye007 4y ago

There are three groups each with their strengths and weaknesses. One are the carmakers, OEM’s. Take for instance CARIAD, the Volkswagen software arm. They are a TomTom partner. Their strength is sensor data. There will be 40 million Volkswagen brand cars where the front camera sends data to the servers. Their problem is that they don’t have mapping expertise. They do want to build their own services on top of a base map. For instance all charging stations that are theirs. (ionity). Then you have tomtom. Their strength is AI and machine learning and how to fuse those vehicle sensor data in the map. Also they have a team of 1.000 mapping employees in Pune, India. Making edits every day and checking change reports with other data like sattelite imagery. Their challenge is that they need those data from car sensors (and they get them) Then there is obviously OSM. Where the strength is the wisdom of the community. But also a weakness that people can make mistakes and from time to time vandalism happens. In this new venture you get a best of both (or in this case 3) worlds. The India people in Pune can do quality checks on OSM data. For instance comparing with other sources. And their tools and AI can fuse sensor data from cars of tomtom partners. Those are Volkswagen group but also Stellantis (merger of Peugeot-Citroen and Fiat-Chrysler-Jeep), Toyota and others. The TomTom base map (lowest layar) will be provided to OSM. Forgot to mention one thing, which is Apple. TomTom gets their probe data which helps in street geometry and traffic. With the help of OSM TomTom now has a Japan map. Very important for carmakers in Japan. Big market. Because in Japan 80% of mobile phone users are iOS users (huge iPhone marketshare) this is an opportunity to get data from many sources together. Also from Japanese carmakers like Toyota who do research with TomTom on HD maps for autonomous driving and assisted driving (ADAS). This looks like a win-win-win for all three. Carmakers, TomTom and OSM. And a worry for Google Maps and HERE technologies.

afknewsagency 4y ago

10 years is quite a long time for things to change though. Sure many sources might have existed for a long time, but it sounds like the way the company is going to use them, how quickly it will turn them around will improve. It's not transactional per se any more, more real-time (depending on the specific use or update). As for the same management, depending on your perspective, that might be a sign of stability. Judging by the press release this morning, company has solid order book and is reporting a record 2.4 million euro automotive order book.

pojzon 4y ago
As someone who worked there over a year ago (no NDA on me anymore). Its still the same as person before you explains. TomTom is trying to create competition to HERE map making platform. And I agree a change id upper management is needed / despite new CTO being hired.

molly_radstowe 4y ago

How is it stealing data? Most geospatial companies use OSM data, with OSM's permission, and it's a smart thing to do b/c they have a great map. Why wouldn't a mapmaker work with OSM data?

askldfjaliwejf 4y ago
except google. They copied OSM data in the past, and used in their proprietary offering that includes reselling the data. A blatant offense of the OSM license. They were caught red handed in 2018 i think, and blamed on some contractors. But most interesting, despite this being a widely know fact for the mapping community, i can't find any mention of it anywhere today.
- pietervdvn 4y ago
  As hardcore-OSMer: this is pure FUD. There are suspicions, but no hard proof has ever been found about this. However, there is a well-known (and non-problematic) case where OSM-data is used in GMaps. Some polish bus agency used OSM to create their GTFS-feeds, which were ingested into GMaps. Selecting the bus line will thus show an OSM-based line layer; but as that line layer is clearly attributed with OpenStreetMap, that is totally fine; both legal and ethical. See https://twitter.com/MapAmorePH/status/1453863816110952450?t=pBkd8DsSnfIL9E_37IvLwQ&s=19 https://twitter.com/MapAmorePH/status/1453863816110952450?t=...
- mda 4y ago
  As someone who has some first hand knowledge in the area, Your claim is not correct.
heed 4y ago
I don’t know what OP meant by “steal” but the complicated thing with using OSM data as a mapmaker is that if you “derive” any other data source with it you have to make it available which means (as I understand it) you have to contribute it back to OSM. If TomTom was planning on conflating OSM data with other sources then in theory it hurts their business model because they will potentially have to make their entire map (or large parts of it) freely available in OSM. If they can somehow set up clean room conditions and keep all their other data sources physically separated from the OSM data then it might be avoided, but then how do you do the map conflation? And that would certainly impact how quickly they can make updates. Maybe they came up with some clever way to avoid having to contribute data back to OSM and that’s what OP means by “steal.”

netsectoday 4y ago

Do you know that Microsoft Bing maps also "steals" the OSM data? They did some very clever "reverse stealing" as well when they contributed back to the project by providing millions of accurate building footprints. Yes, I'm being sarcastic. It's a win-win situation when ANY large mapping group joins OSM. At the very least; they will accidentally contribute road-level improvements when they work with the data. I rely upon OSM data and need these large players throwing their weight behind this mapping system.

olah_1 4y ago
Now imagine if Tomtom and Microsoft both paid users for map improvements. That would be super cool. They could even make an app to submit the improvements and even show me ads, I don't care. I would still do it.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  in practice you can't trust a bounty system like this, so the next best might be to sell your company products in such a way as to minimize the system friction between new sales, new data coming in from those new sales, and feeding back to the open ecosystem. In that latter case, you can't trust the company management, but to my mind .. that's the breaks
  - olah_1 4y ago
    > you can't trust a bounty system like this You mean the accuracy of the data? I guess that is why a lot of systems have “validators” or something like that in place. But it’s a problem with OSM and wikipedia in general.
swores 4y ago
I think you're missing the forrest for the trees here - they put "steal" in ""s because they know it's not stealing. The point of their comment was to criticise TomTom for not doing much interesting themselves, not to discuss the nuances of OSM. In this context, "steal" makes sense because it's something that TomTom can claim to be innovative with while actually the innovation credit belongs to OSM.

baggachipz 4y ago

Yeah but they changed their logo!

eecc 4y ago

That Riak based platform they presented eons ago at a Meetup in Amsterdam could have been a mind-blowing real-time traffic flow optimizer. But I think it just withered to an API for syncing your POIs across devices. SMH

revel 4y ago

Google Maps has one of the most abusive license practices I've seen; effectively they force every one of their competitors to use OSM. As a consequence, OSM is the default for every company in this space.

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
A business decision regarding IP is not abuse.
- beej71 4y ago
  Their non-abusive license forces everyone else in the space to use OSM. :)
- ipsum2 4y ago
  Abusive means "extremely offensive and insulting", according to Google
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    Only if you're part of the entitlement generation that expects everything to be free and nobody should be paid for their work.
    - franga2000 4y ago
      If it was about wanting everything to be free, Mapbox wouldn't be the most common non-Google map provider. Google's free tier is more generous and their data is usually better. A few points that particularly bother me: 1. Google gets a lot of this data from their users (both from traditional crowdsourcing and sneaky things like tracking Android phones) and then locks it up so you have to pay to use it. 2. The way they license their services forces you to stay in their ecosystem. For example you are only allowed to use Google Places Search on a Google Maps map. 3. There are APIs Google just doesn't provide for various reasons and because they "own" the data, everyone else has to start from scratch (or use OSM). There's no way to download some subset of the data for a one-time sum or even a subscription license and provide your own service on top of it. Yes, these things mostly fall into what people consider a company's freedom to do business however they like. But Google is more than just any random company and the data they gatekeep is more than just any random dataset.