South Korea said this Wednesday they will delay the request by Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) to take government mapping data to use in worldwide servers. Seoul previously stated that they would have an answer for August 24, but the country has been extending the review of the bid the tech giant made back in May.
Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. needs South Korean official data to enable mapping services entirely in the Asian nation.
After a Government meeting on Wednesday, authorities said they need to make “a cautious decision.” Instead of supplying the information they promised, South Korea pushed the call back to November 23.
Google has a map for the country, but is basic and outdated and needs additional information to make their services fully available.
Security concerns
The state’s reluctance to provide the data Google asks comes from obvious concerns about what their enemies could do with such information. South Korea is still technically at war with their prosperous neighbor, North Korea, although the fighting ended in 1953 with the creation of the Korea Demilitarized Zone.
Tensions flow back and forth, and there is no peace treaty between in the past and no negotiations in sight. Meanwhile, the young leader of the North Kin Jong-Un has done little to stop the quarry.
The brightest prospect of real peace is a yearly edition of the war turned family reunion, where South Koreans can cross the border and meet for about two hours with the relatives they have not seen since the war. October 2015 was the 20th edition of the reunion.
So far, the company has not been able to dissolve the fears that the data could get into the wrong hands and be used with different means than finding directions.
Further negotiations
The talks between the company and South Korea will continue. Kwon Beom-Jun, a product manager for Google Maps, is in charge of the negotiation. In a debate at the Korea National Assembly earlier this month, he warned that governments that hide mapping data fall behind in the market competition. “During the mobile age, services that combine location data and map services are standing at the center of innovation.”
The manager assures that if map information goes overseas, competition in the domestic market will rise because publishers and developers will be able to use Google Maps services to do their business in the global market.
Source: CNET