3 ms·

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")

> 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")