10-06-2018, 05:41 PM
(09-30-2018, 05:41 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:(09-30-2018, 03:58 PM)Pheidippides Wrote: I do not know for sure but there is usually a substantial delay.
The cities/region paid for the imagery to be flown so in that sense it is proprietary in nature so they probably only share it after the next batch of imagery comes in (usually 1-2years) and this batch becomes dated.
Unless they are selling it during that time I don’t think that makes a lot of sense. They aren’t businesses who understandably try to avoid giving their competition free assistance. Once the data have been obtained, it costs essentially nothing to make it available to all interested parties and that is what our governments should do with mapping data.
I think charging a reasonable fee for commercial usage of the satellite imagery would be a reasonable thing to do. And I do think Google could afford to pay for it.
I don't know what the practice is in other cities, though.