Another case of shoddy reporting compounding faux alarmism: Scotland on Sunday reports that the UK’s Office for Civil Nuclear Security (OCNS) sees Google Earth as a “security issue” with causes it “headaches” and “worry”. What kind of issues? Well, none really, if you read the full quote by a spokesman:

“It is an issue for us. At present the quality of the images is such as not to give concern but if the pictures were of a higher resolution then that would be a different issue.”

So there’s no story. Silliness does start when a “source” tells the paper:

“If there were to be high-quality detailed images made available of security-sensitive areas then we would intervene to stop things like that getting out. We would have to take steps to prevent security being jeopardised.”

Intervene, ay? Ooh, scary.

To spice things up a bit, the article has to go sensationalise the Australian episode, where a wayward nuclear energy official’s censorious zeal was quickly squashed by cooler heads in the federal government. Here is some accurate local reporting on the matter:

A spokeswoman for [Australian] Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said security agencies had factored the Google Earth website into their assessments of threat and found it posed no risk.

Which means, Murdo Macleod, that it is not true that “The Australian government has already demanded that pictures of a nuclear plant should be removed from the site,” as you wrote. Nor is it true that “The authorities in Australia have already called for Google to screen out images of a nuclear power station amid worries that the information might be of use to terrorists.”

A US Geological Survey committee on Thursday posted new guidelines for disseminatng aerial imagery of the type Google Earth buys from vendors, according to a GovExec.com article citing the National Journal’s Technology Daily.

Apparently, the new guidelines exist in order to safeguard the public’s access to imagery, rather than to restrict it further:

The decision to draft the guidelines was made because some organizations “curtailed access without assessing the risk to security” before considering the public benefit.

That might be spin, but it just so happens that Google’s imagery recently became less censored, not more. In any case, the new guidelines “do not grant any new authority,” and mainly exist to clarify existing policy.

I went hunting for these guidelines on the USGS website, and soon discovered that this site is in serious need of an information architect to beat some sense into that sprawling mess. It’s fiendishly hard to try to find updated info when none of the component sites talk to each other.

Eventually, I did find a final draft dated June 2005, Guidelines for Providing Appropriate Access to Geospatial Data in Response to Security Concerns, a 3 16-page PDF, on the website of something called the Federal Geographic Data Committee. I’m guessing these are the guidelines that were adopted.

In these guidelines, the uniqueness of information is a factor in deciding whether imagery should be restricted. If imagery is available from open sources elsewhere, the guidelines clearly note, restricting the data is not justified.(None of this applies to non-US data providers.)

Joe Francica at Directions Magazine posts an editorial about Google Earth’s contribution to making GIS more accessible to the layman.

His observations are buttressed by an announcement at the end of his article that Directions Magazine will be shifting focus slightly, to take into account this burgeoning consumer market and the moneymaking opportunities it brings:

Next week, Directions Magazine unveils a new publication to follow the trends in “profiting” from location technology and the applications of how geospatial information and technology become more embedded in enterprise systems. Location Intelligence Magazine will be a window into not only how businesses will deploy these tools for B2B solutions but also how these “consumer” applications of GE and MS VE might affect how the business world leverage “location” for a competitive advantage. I hope you will subscribe.

Done. Of course, one way to “profit” off Google Earth is to start up a magazine about it:-)

Rev Dan Catt comes out with a new update for Geobloggers, which is going from strength to strength. For example:

Needless to say this turns PodCasting sideways. You don’t need to subscribe to single users or site, you can subscribe to an area around your home, regardless of who the podcaster is. Same of course applies to Video.

That’s been the promise of geotagging, and Geobloggers is delivering in droves — and it’s all exportable to Google Earth as well. As the Rev says, “Oh and as Ajax websites go, I reckon geobloggers is pretty hot now ;)”

First, a thread on James Fee’s blog generates further lively debate on what Google’s mapping ventures mean to ESRI. Later, he highlights a new database of mapping servers, mapdex.org, which looks set to become a major resource for users of clients such as Google Earth, especially as formats become more interchangeable and the user base explodes.

In the meantime, he exhorts ESRI to start blogging properly. But straight corporate blogs are dry and PR-ish. Microsoft has a much better example of what works. It’s obvious what needs to happen: ESRI needs to make James Fee their Robert Scoble.

Some guy left a comment pointing out that NWS Tulsa’s KML feed seemed to be missing (see Friday’s post), so I emailed the webmaster asking for a clarification for Ogle Earth. And I got one right away:

We did this purely as an experiment…knowing that our headquarters would likely ask us to remove this page from the NWS Tulsa website. And…yep…they asked us to remove it a few days ago. Didn’t want to give the impression that the NWS was parterning with Google. I’ll ask our IT if the KML files will be produced in the future.

There is also a potential project between us…the Huntsville office and NASA that may produce similar products.

Thanks for your concern.

Chuck Hodges

NWS Tulsa

That just seems to confirm the impression from Friday’s Slashdot thread that the NWS is full of geeks who can’t help but experiment with new technologies. But KML is just XML, and HQ in this case is being a bit overbearing — it’s akin to issuing a directive that no NWS documents can pe published as PDFs, to avoid the impression that the NWS is partnering with Adobe. (and they do publish PDFs, I checked.)

Fantom Planet finds further evidence in support of an emerging meme: Nationalist battles for “ownership” of places on Google Earth.

Last month, Kashmir and Tibet were the subject of dispute. Now, it’s the Sea of Japan, sorry, the East Sea, that is causing a ruckus between Japanese and Korean activists.

The crux of the problem is that there is only one Google Earth — only one digital mirror of the real world onto which all our nationalist persuasions are projected. In the old days of paper maps, everybody could make their own.

Perhaps in the future, place names will just become another layer, with Google offering language localisation that also happens to be politically corrected for the sensibilities of the relevant ethnic groups. It would be a pity, though, to have a Google Earth – Korea Edition and Google Earth – Japan Edition. It’d sort of undermine the whole point of the project.

[Update 2005-08-22: More on the tussle at The Lost Nomad.]

[Update 2005-08-27: James Fee has yet another example, involving Montenegro and Croatia.]