The father of India’s missile program, Indian president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, on Saturday delivered a speech in which he called Google Earth a security risk, on the grounds that it gives terrorists easy access to the kind of information they need to conduct attacks. The president, a figurehead without policymaking powers akin to Germany’s and Israel’s presidents, came out with these quotes, among others (AP story, The Statesman, India, The Hindu Business Line, The Times of India)

You will realise that some of the developing countries, already facing terrorist attacks, have been singularly chosen for sourcing such high-resolution images.

When you look deeper into it, you would realise that laws in some countries regarding spatial observations over their territories and UN recommendations about the display of spatial observations are inadequate.

His conspiracy theory in the first quote is easily dismissable. Developing countries are proportionally underrepresented on Google Earth, not overrepresented, when it comes to high-resolution imagery. See for yourself. Recent updates are not “biased” towards the developing world either. I wish they were, in fact, as some of the world’s most amazing sights are not to be found in European and American suburbs. And among developing countries, Iraq has the most coverage, due to the war there.

Furthermore, making national laws against what satellites in Earth orbit can and cannot see is like legislating against a tidal wave. And suggesting that the UN take on the role of global censor betrays a complete lack of understanding about the purpose of that body. Fundamentally, governments do not need to be protected from their citizens; citizens’ rights need to be protected from governments and overzealous, unwitting civil servants like Kalam. Google Earth helps by making that process irreversible. Complaining government officials are a sign of progress.

Over at Infectuous Greed, a commenter leaves the observation that most of the Web 2.0 services, and specifically mashups, lack stickiness: “I cannot think of one mashup that I have used beyond that initial curiosity phase.”

The blog’s owner, Paul Kedrosky, agrees, but does not think this dooms the Web 2.0 idea (though he is mum as to why).

Quite possibly, this is merely a case of our collective imagination needing to catch up with the possibilities made available by new technology. But it is an interesting contrast to Google Earth, where all the anecdotal evidence (and blogs are nothing if not that) points to a strong and growing addiction among users. Google Earth is generating blockbuster video-game levels of usage. Sure, it’s immersive, but that’s not the main reason, I think. Rather, it’s because Google Earth is an enhanced browser, not an application in a browser — it’s a platform to publish to, not something that is published to a platform.

The analogy holds up well when comparing Google Earth to the traditional browser: Although our interest might flit from site to site using a traditional HTML browser, we still use a browser all the time. Google Earth is slipping into its browser role nicely — National Geographic last week, ants this week… Whatever it is next week, We’ll use Google Earth to show us. That’s stickiness.

This blog post is yet another good example of how a little knowledge coupled to knee-jerk nationalism really is a terrible thing.

Sharp observation on the cultural impact Google Earth is having.

Via Grasshoppermind’s del.icio.us bookmarks, an excerpt from The Semantic Earth, a quarterly report published by an outfit called Release 1.0.

It’s not exactly cheap — the report costs $80. But what I find intriguing is these three things; first of all, the gist of the message:

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has been stuck where information retrieval was in the early ’90s: a technology that could have transformative effects if only it didn’t require high priests to build and maintain it.

Second, an endorsement of Release 1.0 reports by none other than Google CEO Eric Schmidt, right next to it:

“It’s obvious to me — and to most of my peers in the industry — that Release 1.0 is absolutely indispensable. It consistently combines the latest thinking of the brightest minds on issues of significance to the industry. I can’t be without it!”

Finally, the timing: The report was published in January 2004.

In October, Google bought Keyhole.

[Update 20.19 UTC: Grasshoppermind has further interesting context on his blog.]

By far the most balanced and informative article I have read about Google Earth to date is, alas for all but four of you, in Swedish.

I even learned something. Google buys some of its images, for example those of the Australian experimental nuclear reactor in Lucas Heights, from Digital Globe, an American company. That company checks new clients against a list of individuals, organisations or countries it is not allowed to sell to, it turns out. Google isn’t on the list, of course. After that the trail goes cold. If you’re a committed enough evildoer, you’ll find somebody who isn’t on that list, naturally, but it’s still a factor worth taking into account when compiling the big picture.

Something else new to me is that the article quotes a Swedish government security expert as saying he estimates the highest theoretical satellite resolution to be 10 cm. Atmospheric disturbances prevent higher resolutions, he says. Personally, I am surprised it’s so low, but that would explain why airplanes are still so prized as intelligence gatherers.

Via this interesting MSNBC article on Thetus — a startup that aims to become the Google of non-text data and which just received a cash infusion from a CIA-funded venture capital firm — I learned that Keyhole Corp. also received CIA funding in order to develop what is now Google Earth. I wonder what Hevesi thinks of that! I love it.

All this might set the conspiracy theorists’ tongues wagging in some places as to what the purpose of Google Earth is — after all, democratising access to spatial data globally undermines the most secretive governments most. But I think the proper message to take from this is that the CIA is becoming smarter by incubating and harnessing innovation out in the free markets, rather than always trying to develop homebrewed solutions.

(It turns out, now that I look for it, that the Wall Street Journal wrote about this a few weeks ago.)