3 ms·

Yes. It's extremely annoying and can be very expensive. Correct maps are needed for applications in planning, agriculture etc and aren't free.

• toyg 15y ago
  If I may play devil's advocate for a minute, it's also true that some of these access fees were originally introduced to recoup costs. The idea was that some of these services would pay for themselves, relying on general taxation only for funds necessary to bootstrap, then run "forever" with zero impact on public finances. So, once we say that all public data should be free, we should also accept that the economic burden of creating that data will also be entirely covered by general taxation, year after year. Personally I'm not against the idea, but I bet a lot of people would be, probably even many of those now complaining that they're "taxed twice".
  • kiloaper 15y ago
    >probably even many of those now complaining that they're "taxed twice". In this case I'm the one being taxed twice. I pay my taxes to the government which creates detailed maps that it then charges me to photocopy so I can submit their paperwork back to them.
  • rmc 15y ago
    A lot of the customers of this mapping data are other government departments! If you want to make a planning map of something, etc. you need to pay for a licence from the other government department.