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Google to obey South Korean order to blur satellite images on maps

129 points by gnabgib 1y ago

deleted 1y ago
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Simulacra 1y ago
Couldn't another company do this that's not as international as Google?
- gwbas1c 1y ago
  > As a result, domestic technology firms like Naver and Kakao have cornered the market for mapping services, making navigation harder for foreign visitors unfamiliar with their platforms.
  - jjani 1y ago
    And making navigation better for the 50 million Korean residents who get to deal with mapping apps that aren't enshittified to the nth degree to optimize ad revenue and nothing but that.
    - mparkms 1y ago
      What makes you think the Korean apps don't do the exact same thing?
      - jjani 1y ago
        Me using them on a daily basis [0]. The image I made says more than a thousand words. Hint: They very much don't! Much like, say, Google Maps of circa 2010. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45185614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45185614
- perihelions 1y ago
  Yes; it's an absurd law. Anyone looking for unblurred satellite photos of South Korea can trivially find them on any number of international services who are not Google. Google is complying with this law, which is absurd, in order to negotiate export-controlled GIS data from South Korea—it needs those to make Google Maps competitive with South Korean consumers. The net result is Google will now blur a couple buildings; other websites will not; and incompetent bureaucrats will continuing failing upwards, doing useless things. (It's arguably even actively counterproductive, since internationally there are people who[0] go tracking down blurred objects on satellite maps, and identifying what they are. The Streisand Effect of these regulations is to provide curated, military-certified alists of (1) what a military thinks is valuable enough it *ought* to be a secret, paired together with (2) the complete content of that secret). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satellite_map_images_with_missing_or_unclear_data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satellite_map_images_w... ("List of satellite map images with missing or unclear data")
bryanhogan 1y ago
Do I understand correctly that this just means that military zones will be blurred? Then how does this sentence make sense? > Google said on Tuesday that it would comply with the South Korean government's demand to blur sensitive satellite images on its mapping services, paving the way for the US tech giant to compete better with local navigation platforms. Anyone in South Korea will continue to use Naver Maps or Kakao Maps.
- perihelions 1y ago
  That's how I parse the subsequent quote later in the article, > "...oogle would "invest a lot of time and resources" to remove the coordinates of security facilities from its maps."
- zamadatix 1y ago
  I dunno if it means solely military zones or not, e.g. maybe certain key government buildings might be blurred/hidden/obfuscated too. The article seems very light on details. Regardless of what's included in the above, I took the quoted sentence as meaning something like "because Google will blur the sensitive locations, Maps will now be able to provide directions between two points in South Korea instead of reporting 'Sorry, your search appears to be outside our current coverage area for driving'. This will enable it to be competitive with local navigation platforms". How many people will continue to use the existing services or switch over to Maps is not guaranteed, but I'm willing to bet the net effect is not 0.
- ctphipps 1y ago
  Residents might, but the huge number of international visitors who rely on Google Maps wherever they go won't need to go hunting for alternatives when arriving in South Korea. And the other parts of the Google ecosystem that rely on Maps will start to function in South Korea again. Apple finally got the green light to enable Find My in South Korea back in April. Before that, you disappeared off the map when in South Korea, at least as far as Find My is concerned.
wkat4242 1y ago
Yeah it's weird. A lot of countries try to interfere with global mapping anyway. Like China which has its entire country at an offset by using a slighly offset datum standard. It's called the China GPS Shift. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_data_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_dat...
- notyourwork 1y ago
  Facts like this make me realize how peculiar things you have a general idea about are. Thanks for sharing, I learned something new today.
- supriyo-biswas 1y ago
  And there's an unofficial implementation of a mapping function https://github.com/googollee/eviltransform https://github.com/googollee/eviltransform
- zamalek 1y ago
  > Yeah it's weird. When you consider SK's neighbors, and their neighbors' ambitions, it really isn't at all.
  - wkat4242 1y ago
    Yes but they (especially China who will share with NK anyway) have enough satellites of their own, they don't need Google.
hengheng 1y ago
It's the same with military sites in France, where satellite images are blurred but you still get street view, and if that doesn't exist, you can still look at ground level photos, like so https://maps.app.goo.gl/Kr2822pASFRPLJHR7 https://maps.app.goo.gl/Kr2822pASFRPLJHR7 Compliance is fun.
- rtkwe 1y ago
  Aerial images that look down to the inside courtyards etc of a location are different than Streetview which just shows the same view someone could get walking by.
- perihelions 1y ago
  France tried in the past to censor information about their sensitive facilities on Wikipedia, too. In 2013, their intelligence agency detained a random admin who was a French national, and forced them to use their credentials to make an edit in front of them, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5503354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5503354 ("French homeland intelligence threatens a sysop into deleting a Wikipedia Article (wikimedia.fr)", 191 comments) The military site in that dispute was https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pierre-sur-Haute_military_radio_station https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pierre-sur-Haute_... ("Pierre-sur-Haute military radio station") > "As a result of the controversy, the article temporarily became the most read page on the French Wikipedia, which was noted as an example of the Streisand effect.")
- trillic 1y ago
  Another weird French one https://www.google.com/maps/place/46%C2%B046'51.6%22N+56%C2%B010'17.0%22W/@46.7815376,-56.1755249,1496m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d46.781!4d-56.1713889!5m1!1e1 https://www.google.com/maps/place/46%C2%B046'51.6%22N+56%C2%...
  - ctphipps 1y ago
    French as in language alone...
    - 1y ago
perihelions 1y ago
Alternative link to the identical (AFP) article, if anyone has technical issues with the barrons.com (progressive-loading) site: https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/google-to-obey-south-korean-order-to-blur-satellite-images-on-maps https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/google-to-obey-s...
- iamtedd 1y ago
  Thanks. That Barron's put a paywall message directly after a passage that explaining that the article is entirely an AFP production is some subtle irony.
bapak 1y ago
Wasn't that always the case? I was in Seoul in 2016 and Google Maps wasn't even allowed to be vectorial there.
trillic 1y ago
List of satellite map images with missing or unclear data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satellite_map_images_with_missing_or_unclear_data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satellite_map_images_w...
deleted 1y ago
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mattlutze 1y ago
For the longest time there were plenty of locations in the US that were also blurred. The Naval Observatory, Vice President's residence/office in DC, for example. It's not anymore, though the maps are lower quality over DC now and the USG can just compel Google to edit the tiles to obscure details of sensitive sites.
phendrenad2 1y ago
This isn't really the best reporting on the situation. Here's the deal: Google Maps currently doesn't work well in South Korea. That's because the SK government has refused to give Google access to their official map data, because of "security concerns". They apparently had no problem giving map data to local SK companies, however, so essentially those companies had an unfair advantage. While negotiating tariffs, it seems like Google was able to slip into the talks and cut a deal with the SK government to get the data. I guess a minor detail of the deal is that certain things will be blurred? I assume military bases?
- mystraline 1y ago
  How about a better solution, which is to provide equal access to everyone, be they some local company, OSM, Google, Bing or whoever? And its not a "security issue". Only way that would be true is if they have a countrywide tarp across the country. /sarcasm
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  > I guess a minor detail of the deal is that certain things will be blurred? I assume military bases? That can't be the case — blurry billboards saying essentially, "Nothing to see here!"
- j_maffe 1y ago
  blurry everything.
  - aerostable_slug 1y ago
    That's effectively what Israel has. America forces a maximum satellite resolution on any commercial providers that want to play ball with .gov buyers (which is all of them, since .gov is a huge customer of commercial imagery).
- jhanschoo 1y ago
  Quote 1: > That is because South Korean laws require that companies store core geospatial data locally, something Google has long refused to do. Quote 2: > That's because the SK government has refused to give Google access to their official map data, because of "security concerns". Quote 3: > Google said Tuesday it will accept the South Korean government's security requirements to remove coordinates for the Korean region from its map in order to secure approval to export high-precision map data overseas. (via https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/business/tech-science/20250909/google-says-will-accept-seouls-security-requirements-for-map-data-transfer https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/business/tech-science/20250909/...) (Quote 1) from the article is my prior understanding of the situation. Your claim (Quote 2) doesn't match my prior understanding either. I did some googling, and found additional reporting (Quote 3), which seems to be more precise and accurately contextualized than (Quote 1). I am personally quite sympathetic to the posture of KR's government, regarding data sovereignty of high-precision map data. I understand that Google and other tech companies were always legally able to serve maps of SK of comparable quality from a datacenter in SK.
josefresco 1y ago
Years ago I requested Google blur my house on Street View - it still is. Granted, every other mapping service has satellite photos of my house but I'm just surprised they still honor it.
RajT88 1y ago
This is probably because in the absence of a space program, North Korea uses Google maps for surveilling it's rivals. (I kid, I kid. I am sure they have access to Chinese spy satellite data)
- tokai 1y ago
  Russian data is more probable. Seeing they are military allies.
newsclues 1y ago
It's not like NK can't get uncensored imagery from Russia or China, or commercial access.
mystraline 1y ago
In the USA, sensitive sites are not hidden by blur, but instead by fake scenery generation. Nearby where I live, there is an oil pipeline pump/monitor station. Shows up on Google maps as dilapidated concrete pad, decades old. Its really a modern pump/lift station, with a razor fence around it. Google maps indicates the tile data is from 2025. The station has been there for 10+ years. Even weirder, is that Bing maps shows the pump station proper.
- jjani 1y ago
  > In the USA, sensitive sites are not hidden by blur, but instead by fake scenery generation. This is generally the same in Korea, the title is wrong. The military bases are made to look like forests.
- newman8r 1y ago
  Probably possible to cross reference bing and google imagery to get a complete list of the spots they don't want people to see.
  - mystraline 1y ago
    Can you add contact info? I'd be glad to privately share 1 of these sites. And your other interests really coincide with mine. :)
  - aerostable_slug 1y ago
    Yandex too. France is particularly full of these kinds of sites, mostly having to do with their nuclear deterrent. If you want to see the interesting vertical silo storage they use for their SLBMs near the loading pier, you're best off using Yandex.
- jofer 1y ago
  More likely, the date attribution in the imagery is incorrect. As someone who works in that exact field (literally - I produce seamless mosaicked global maps and work for a satellite company), I can assure you that we don't and can't do this (generate "fake" imagery). Depending on country the exact satellite is licensed through, some areas may be lower-res (e.g. sats licensed via Canada can't provide imagery in active conflict zones above a certain resolution). The US govt can in principle demand we stop imaging for US-licensed satellites (though they never have so far as I know). A lot of regulatory details can vary based on the country 1) your satellites are licensed in, 2) your company is based in, and 3) where you're selling data. However, none of the imagery is "fake". Our imagery sometimes feeds into google maps, and I don't know google's exact processing chain, so I can't rule out them doing something like that. However, I'd be absolutely shocked if they were for a lot of different reasons. It's _way_ more likely that the tile data is incorrectly indicating 2025. E.g. they're using 3rd party data that doesn't have detailed scene provenance information in that area and are just showing "2025" in the absence of other information. More interesting is the things China and some other countries do around datums. If you process things correctly, your satellite data won't align with their official street/infrastructure maps. Instead it will be randomly and smoothly shifted in different directions across the country. That's to make on-the-ground targeting based on official maps much more difficult. E.g. you can't reliably take one of the official maps and go "point the artillery at an azimuth of 321.5 degrees and target a location 4567 meters away". However, it makes things really tough when you're trying to provide a correctly processed "backdrop" mosaic to Chinese customers. (IIRC, this problem has gone away due to the ubiquity of OSM data or regulations changed in recent years. Still, China in particular has a lot of interesting regulations around map accuracy.)
dudeinjapan 1y ago
Here's a good read on OpenStreetMap in Korea (use Google Translate) https://medium.com/seoul-libre-maps/%EB%94%94%EC%A7%80%ED%84%B8-%EC%A7%80%EB%8F%84%EC%99%80-%EC%98%A4%ED%94%88%EB%8D%B0%EC%9D%B4%ED%84%B0%EB%A5%BC-%EB%B0%94%EB%9D%BC%EB%B3%B4%EB%8A%94-%EB%AA%87-%EA%B0%80%EC%A7%80-%EA%B4%80%EC%A0%90-76a4bd411168 https://medium.com/seoul-libre-maps/%EB%94%94%EC%A7%80%ED%84... Apparently Pokemon Go was a major driver for OSM editors in Korea--Niantic used OSM and PokeStops wouldn't spawn due low quality OSM data.
jjani 1y ago
Finally, my time has come! A topic I'm both very passionate about and have a lot of experience with. > As a result, domestic technology firms like Naver and Kakao have cornered the market for mapping services, making navigation harder for foreign visitors unfamiliar with their platforms. Oh no! Poor tourists have to download a different map app! Such inconvenience and hardship! It's the opposite. Whenever I go abroad and get to use a local app instead of a FAANG monstrosity, it's usually a delight. And there is no better example than Maps. Even without knowing a lick of Korean, the discerning HN reader will immediately spot the difference in degree of enshittification with the two local market leaders [1]. Google Maps? Massive space to 3 companies that clearly paid the most for ads. I can't emphasize just how random the companies are, there's no other reason than ads that those are shown. The pictured area is tourist heavy, so plenty of Google Maps users. And dozens and dozens of establishment even just in the screenshot with 100x+ the visitors, including Google Maps searches, than the 3 companies that do get their own name and icon. Everything else is a grey mess, unusable. Public transit, metro lines? Never heard of them. Different types of streets? Colors that make sense and increase readibility? Nope. Why? Again, go make the ads stand out more. And unfortunately this is unrelated to Korea - Google Maps is this awful anywhere, as a result of being a monopolistic ads company. Such a prime example of why they need to be broken up. The local map apps in Korea, Naver Maps and Kakao Maps, are the poster child of just how good it is for a society to protect themselves against the FAANGs. 50 million people get to use a much better navigation app thanks to it. In addition, it creates jobs and keeps all related revenue inside the country. Win-win-win. The only one who loses out is Google, and the few tourists who can't be bothered to install a local app (available in multiple languages, by the way). Even for those, it's not like Google Maps is banned; it's definitely functional. It has the public transit, it has the restaurants and so on. [1] https://ibb.co/hJkL3xRY https://ibb.co/hJkL3xRY
- Sporktacular 1y ago
  Naver and Kakao lists businesses for free but offers paid services to businesses for enhanced visibility and operations. Their combined annual revenues is around 10 billion USD. And the apps still suck. They could do with some competition.
Sporktacular 1y ago
Pretty good summary of the arguments here: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/05/travel/south-korea-google-maps-intl-hnk-dst https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/05/travel/south-korea-google... Of course the pearl clutching by Korean mega-corporations that Google would behave monopolistically is pretty hard to take.
ur-whale 1y ago
https://maps.yandex.com https://maps.yandex.com
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mauriciolange 1y ago
This can be seen in action here in Europe. Near Antwerp, in Kruibeke, we stumbled upon a military base when deviating from the A14 to fill the tank. The whole area is blurred in google maps.
seoulbigchris 1y ago
I just did a spot check, since I live very near an airport. The airport is blurred / obscured on Naver and Kakao Maps. Google maps and Google Earth still show the actual imagery. I guess Google's blurring hasn't begun yet.

129 points by gnabgib 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

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Simulacra 1y ago

Couldn't another company do this that's not as international as Google?

gwbas1c 1y ago
> As a result, domestic technology firms like Naver and Kakao have cornered the market for mapping services, making navigation harder for foreign visitors unfamiliar with their platforms.
- jjani 1y ago
  And making navigation better for the 50 million Korean residents who get to deal with mapping apps that aren't enshittified to the nth degree to optimize ad revenue and nothing but that.
  - mparkms 1y ago
    What makes you think the Korean apps don't do the exact same thing?
    - jjani 1y ago
      Me using them on a daily basis [0]. The image I made says more than a thousand words. Hint: They very much don't! Much like, say, Google Maps of circa 2010. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45185614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45185614
perihelions 1y ago
Yes; it's an absurd law. Anyone looking for unblurred satellite photos of South Korea can trivially find them on any number of international services who are not Google. Google is complying with this law, which is absurd, in order to negotiate export-controlled GIS data from South Korea—it needs those to make Google Maps competitive with South Korean consumers. The net result is Google will now blur a couple buildings; other websites will not; and incompetent bureaucrats will continuing failing upwards, doing useless things. (It's arguably even actively counterproductive, since internationally there are people who[0] go tracking down blurred objects on satellite maps, and identifying what they are. The Streisand Effect of these regulations is to provide curated, military-certified alists of (1) what a military thinks is valuable enough it *ought* to be a secret, paired together with (2) the complete content of that secret). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satellite_map_images_with_missing_or_unclear_data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satellite_map_images_w... ("List of satellite map images with missing or unclear data")

bryanhogan 1y ago

Do I understand correctly that this just means that military zones will be blurred? Then how does this sentence make sense? > Google said on Tuesday that it would comply with the South Korean government's demand to blur sensitive satellite images on its mapping services, paving the way for the US tech giant to compete better with local navigation platforms. Anyone in South Korea will continue to use Naver Maps or Kakao Maps.

perihelions 1y ago
That's how I parse the subsequent quote later in the article, > "...oogle would "invest a lot of time and resources" to remove the coordinates of security facilities from its maps."
zamadatix 1y ago
I dunno if it means solely military zones or not, e.g. maybe certain key government buildings might be blurred/hidden/obfuscated too. The article seems very light on details. Regardless of what's included in the above, I took the quoted sentence as meaning something like "because Google will blur the sensitive locations, Maps will now be able to provide directions between two points in South Korea instead of reporting 'Sorry, your search appears to be outside our current coverage area for driving'. This will enable it to be competitive with local navigation platforms". How many people will continue to use the existing services or switch over to Maps is not guaranteed, but I'm willing to bet the net effect is not 0.
ctphipps 1y ago
Residents might, but the huge number of international visitors who rely on Google Maps wherever they go won't need to go hunting for alternatives when arriving in South Korea. And the other parts of the Google ecosystem that rely on Maps will start to function in South Korea again. Apple finally got the green light to enable Find My in South Korea back in April. Before that, you disappeared off the map when in South Korea, at least as far as Find My is concerned.

wkat4242 1y ago

Yeah it's weird. A lot of countries try to interfere with global mapping anyway. Like China which has its entire country at an offset by using a slighly offset datum standard. It's called the China GPS Shift. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_data_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_dat...

notyourwork 1y ago
Facts like this make me realize how peculiar things you have a general idea about are. Thanks for sharing, I learned something new today.
supriyo-biswas 1y ago
And there's an unofficial implementation of a mapping function https://github.com/googollee/eviltransform https://github.com/googollee/eviltransform
zamalek 1y ago
> Yeah it's weird. When you consider SK's neighbors, and their neighbors' ambitions, it really isn't at all.
- wkat4242 1y ago
  Yes but they (especially China who will share with NK anyway) have enough satellites of their own, they don't need Google.

hengheng 1y ago

It's the same with military sites in France, where satellite images are blurred but you still get street view, and if that doesn't exist, you can still look at ground level photos, like so https://maps.app.goo.gl/Kr2822pASFRPLJHR7 https://maps.app.goo.gl/Kr2822pASFRPLJHR7 Compliance is fun.

rtkwe 1y ago
Aerial images that look down to the inside courtyards etc of a location are different than Streetview which just shows the same view someone could get walking by.
perihelions 1y ago
France tried in the past to censor information about their sensitive facilities on Wikipedia, too. In 2013, their intelligence agency detained a random admin who was a French national, and forced them to use their credentials to make an edit in front of them, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5503354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5503354 ("French homeland intelligence threatens a sysop into deleting a Wikipedia Article (wikimedia.fr)", 191 comments) The military site in that dispute was https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pierre-sur-Haute_military_radio_station https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pierre-sur-Haute_... ("Pierre-sur-Haute military radio station") > "As a result of the controversy, the article temporarily became the most read page on the French Wikipedia, which was noted as an example of the Streisand effect.")
trillic 1y ago
Another weird French one https://www.google.com/maps/place/46%C2%B046'51.6%22N+56%C2%B010'17.0%22W/@46.7815376,-56.1755249,1496m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d46.781!4d-56.1713889!5m1!1e1 https://www.google.com/maps/place/46%C2%B046'51.6%22N+56%C2%...
- ctphipps 1y ago
  French as in language alone...
  - 1y ago

perihelions 1y ago

Alternative link to the identical (AFP) article, if anyone has technical issues with the barrons.com (progressive-loading) site: https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/google-to-obey-south-korean-order-to-blur-satellite-images-on-maps https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/google-to-obey-s...

iamtedd 1y ago
Thanks. That Barron's put a paywall message directly after a passage that explaining that the article is entirely an AFP production is some subtle irony.

bapak 1y ago

Wasn't that always the case? I was in Seoul in 2016 and Google Maps wasn't even allowed to be vectorial there.

trillic 1y ago

List of satellite map images with missing or unclear data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satellite_map_images_with_missing_or_unclear_data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satellite_map_images_w...

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

mattlutze 1y ago

For the longest time there were plenty of locations in the US that were also blurred. The Naval Observatory, Vice President's residence/office in DC, for example. It's not anymore, though the maps are lower quality over DC now and the USG can just compel Google to edit the tiles to obscure details of sensitive sites.

phendrenad2 1y ago

This isn't really the best reporting on the situation. Here's the deal: Google Maps currently doesn't work well in South Korea. That's because the SK government has refused to give Google access to their official map data, because of "security concerns". They apparently had no problem giving map data to local SK companies, however, so essentially those companies had an unfair advantage. While negotiating tariffs, it seems like Google was able to slip into the talks and cut a deal with the SK government to get the data. I guess a minor detail of the deal is that certain things will be blurred? I assume military bases?

mystraline 1y ago
How about a better solution, which is to provide equal access to everyone, be they some local company, OSM, Google, Bing or whoever? And its not a "security issue". Only way that would be true is if they have a countrywide tarp across the country. /sarcasm
JKCalhoun 1y ago
> I guess a minor detail of the deal is that certain things will be blurred? I assume military bases? That can't be the case — blurry billboards saying essentially, "Nothing to see here!"
j_maffe 1y ago
blurry everything.
- aerostable_slug 1y ago
  That's effectively what Israel has. America forces a maximum satellite resolution on any commercial providers that want to play ball with .gov buyers (which is all of them, since .gov is a huge customer of commercial imagery).
jhanschoo 1y ago
Quote 1: > That is because South Korean laws require that companies store core geospatial data locally, something Google has long refused to do. Quote 2: > That's because the SK government has refused to give Google access to their official map data, because of "security concerns". Quote 3: > Google said Tuesday it will accept the South Korean government's security requirements to remove coordinates for the Korean region from its map in order to secure approval to export high-precision map data overseas. (via https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/business/tech-science/20250909/google-says-will-accept-seouls-security-requirements-for-map-data-transfer https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/business/tech-science/20250909/...) (Quote 1) from the article is my prior understanding of the situation. Your claim (Quote 2) doesn't match my prior understanding either. I did some googling, and found additional reporting (Quote 3), which seems to be more precise and accurately contextualized than (Quote 1). I am personally quite sympathetic to the posture of KR's government, regarding data sovereignty of high-precision map data. I understand that Google and other tech companies were always legally able to serve maps of SK of comparable quality from a datacenter in SK.

josefresco 1y ago

Years ago I requested Google blur my house on Street View - it still is. Granted, every other mapping service has satellite photos of my house but I'm just surprised they still honor it.

RajT88 1y ago

This is probably because in the absence of a space program, North Korea uses Google maps for surveilling it's rivals. (I kid, I kid. I am sure they have access to Chinese spy satellite data)

tokai 1y ago
Russian data is more probable. Seeing they are military allies.

newsclues 1y ago

It's not like NK can't get uncensored imagery from Russia or China, or commercial access.

mystraline 1y ago

In the USA, sensitive sites are not hidden by blur, but instead by fake scenery generation. Nearby where I live, there is an oil pipeline pump/monitor station. Shows up on Google maps as dilapidated concrete pad, decades old. Its really a modern pump/lift station, with a razor fence around it. Google maps indicates the tile data is from 2025. The station has been there for 10+ years. Even weirder, is that Bing maps shows the pump station proper.

jjani 1y ago
> In the USA, sensitive sites are not hidden by blur, but instead by fake scenery generation. This is generally the same in Korea, the title is wrong. The military bases are made to look like forests.
newman8r 1y ago
Probably possible to cross reference bing and google imagery to get a complete list of the spots they don't want people to see.
- mystraline 1y ago
  Can you add contact info? I'd be glad to privately share 1 of these sites. And your other interests really coincide with mine. :)
- aerostable_slug 1y ago
  Yandex too. France is particularly full of these kinds of sites, mostly having to do with their nuclear deterrent. If you want to see the interesting vertical silo storage they use for their SLBMs near the loading pier, you're best off using Yandex.
jofer 1y ago
More likely, the date attribution in the imagery is incorrect. As someone who works in that exact field (literally - I produce seamless mosaicked global maps and work for a satellite company), I can assure you that we don't and can't do this (generate "fake" imagery). Depending on country the exact satellite is licensed through, some areas may be lower-res (e.g. sats licensed via Canada can't provide imagery in active conflict zones above a certain resolution). The US govt can in principle demand we stop imaging for US-licensed satellites (though they never have so far as I know). A lot of regulatory details can vary based on the country 1) your satellites are licensed in, 2) your company is based in, and 3) where you're selling data. However, none of the imagery is "fake". Our imagery sometimes feeds into google maps, and I don't know google's exact processing chain, so I can't rule out them doing something like that. However, I'd be absolutely shocked if they were for a lot of different reasons. It's _way_ more likely that the tile data is incorrectly indicating 2025. E.g. they're using 3rd party data that doesn't have detailed scene provenance information in that area and are just showing "2025" in the absence of other information. More interesting is the things China and some other countries do around datums. If you process things correctly, your satellite data won't align with their official street/infrastructure maps. Instead it will be randomly and smoothly shifted in different directions across the country. That's to make on-the-ground targeting based on official maps much more difficult. E.g. you can't reliably take one of the official maps and go "point the artillery at an azimuth of 321.5 degrees and target a location 4567 meters away". However, it makes things really tough when you're trying to provide a correctly processed "backdrop" mosaic to Chinese customers. (IIRC, this problem has gone away due to the ubiquity of OSM data or regulations changed in recent years. Still, China in particular has a lot of interesting regulations around map accuracy.)

dudeinjapan 1y ago

Here's a good read on OpenStreetMap in Korea (use Google Translate) https://medium.com/seoul-libre-maps/%EB%94%94%EC%A7%80%ED%84%B8-%EC%A7%80%EB%8F%84%EC%99%80-%EC%98%A4%ED%94%88%EB%8D%B0%EC%9D%B4%ED%84%B0%EB%A5%BC-%EB%B0%94%EB%9D%BC%EB%B3%B4%EB%8A%94-%EB%AA%87-%EA%B0%80%EC%A7%80-%EA%B4%80%EC%A0%90-76a4bd411168 https://medium.com/seoul-libre-maps/%EB%94%94%EC%A7%80%ED%84... Apparently Pokemon Go was a major driver for OSM editors in Korea--Niantic used OSM and PokeStops wouldn't spawn due low quality OSM data.

jjani 1y ago

Finally, my time has come! A topic I'm both very passionate about and have a lot of experience with. > As a result, domestic technology firms like Naver and Kakao have cornered the market for mapping services, making navigation harder for foreign visitors unfamiliar with their platforms. Oh no! Poor tourists have to download a different map app! Such inconvenience and hardship! It's the opposite. Whenever I go abroad and get to use a local app instead of a FAANG monstrosity, it's usually a delight. And there is no better example than Maps. Even without knowing a lick of Korean, the discerning HN reader will immediately spot the difference in degree of enshittification with the two local market leaders [1]. Google Maps? Massive space to 3 companies that clearly paid the most for ads. I can't emphasize just how random the companies are, there's no other reason than ads that those are shown. The pictured area is tourist heavy, so plenty of Google Maps users. And dozens and dozens of establishment even just in the screenshot with 100x+ the visitors, including Google Maps searches, than the 3 companies that do get their own name and icon. Everything else is a grey mess, unusable. Public transit, metro lines? Never heard of them. Different types of streets? Colors that make sense and increase readibility? Nope. Why? Again, go make the ads stand out more. And unfortunately this is unrelated to Korea - Google Maps is this awful anywhere, as a result of being a monopolistic ads company. Such a prime example of why they need to be broken up. The local map apps in Korea, Naver Maps and Kakao Maps, are the poster child of just how good it is for a society to protect themselves against the FAANGs. 50 million people get to use a much better navigation app thanks to it. In addition, it creates jobs and keeps all related revenue inside the country. Win-win-win. The only one who loses out is Google, and the few tourists who can't be bothered to install a local app (available in multiple languages, by the way). Even for those, it's not like Google Maps is banned; it's definitely functional. It has the public transit, it has the restaurants and so on. [1] https://ibb.co/hJkL3xRY https://ibb.co/hJkL3xRY

Sporktacular 1y ago
Naver and Kakao lists businesses for free but offers paid services to businesses for enhanced visibility and operations. Their combined annual revenues is around 10 billion USD. And the apps still suck. They could do with some competition.

Sporktacular 1y ago

Pretty good summary of the arguments here: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/05/travel/south-korea-google-maps-intl-hnk-dst https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/05/travel/south-korea-google... Of course the pearl clutching by Korean mega-corporations that Google would behave monopolistically is pretty hard to take.

ur-whale 1y ago

https://maps.yandex.com https://maps.yandex.com

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mauriciolange 1y ago

This can be seen in action here in Europe. Near Antwerp, in Kruibeke, we stumbled upon a military base when deviating from the A14 to fill the tank. The whole area is blurred in google maps.

seoulbigchris 1y ago

I just did a spot check, since I live very near an airport. The airport is blurred / obscured on Naver and Kakao Maps. Google maps and Google Earth still show the actual imagery. I guess Google's blurring hasn't begun yet.