Real Intension

The Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee of the National Assembly held a policy forum with the theme of “The effect of Taking Spatial Information Abroad on the Spatial Information Industry” at the Assembly Hall on August 8.
The Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee of the National Assembly held a policy forum with the theme of “The effect of Taking Spatial Information Abroad on the Spatial Information Industry” at the Assembly Hall on August 8.

 

During a policy forum for “The effect of Taking Spatial Information Abroad on the Spatial Information Industry” hosted by the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee at the Assembly Hall on August 8, not only politicians but also industry sources were are in sharp disagreement over whether to allow Google to export South Korea’s detailed map data. In particular, industry representatives, including Naver, and academic figures criticized Google for giving a lame excuse to avoid corporate taxes when Google said establishing a data center in Korea would not solve the problem of the map services in Korea.

At the debate, Kwon Bom-jun, a product manager of Google Map and software engineer at Google Korea, said, “For security of data and efficiency and stabilization of services, Google distributes save relevant data on a cloud platform. Since Google services, including Google Maps, are provided on the cloud platform basis, the data Google uses have to be stored across multiple data centers around the globe.” Currently, Google has its data centers in 15 regions of 8 countries, except for Korea.

However, academic figures and domestic mapping service operators, like Naver, refuted the argument, saying that all issues will be resolved when Google builds a server according to Korea law. Park Byung-wook, a professor at the Department of Civil, Safety & Environmental Engineering of Hankyong National University, said, “Setting up a server in Korea is closely related to Google’s tax issue. The export of map data is separate from the data storage on the cloud platform. So, it should be considered totally different concepts.”

Yoon Young-Chan, vice president at Naver, insisted, “Many experts assume that Google doesn’t operate a server in Korea due to Korean taxation systems which impose taxes when a company has official seat of business here.”

Opponents to the export of map data strongly opposed to Google’s push to take the map data out of the country, citing that its request is a kind of a special favor and have an unfair game with domestic mapping service operators. They argued that not only Google enjoys tax benefits as it pays virtually no corporate taxes in Korea, but also the company takes precedence over its competitors at home and abroad by featuring Google Maps in smartphones in advance with its market power in the Android operating system (OS) market. The European Union Commission considers imposing a fine on Google at the moment for engaging in unfair business practice after the company requested to sporting its major applications to mobile device manufacturers which use Android OS.

Choi Hee-won, a senior researcher at the Korea Internet & Security Agency, said, “Uber is also strengthening its mapping services now. Many people are concerned about Google’s monopolization and arrogation. Especially, we should consider about Google not paying taxes even after generating 1 trillion to 2 trillion won (US$902.12 million to 1.8 billion) in annual revenues in Korea.”

Meanwhile, the National Geographic Information Institute must decide on Google’s application by the 25th. The government plans to make a final decision after the second meeting on the 12th with seven other related government institutions – the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport, the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Unification, the Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of Security and Public Administration and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

 

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