Google Maps risks being outlawed in China as they apply for online mapping license

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Google Maps, as well as Google Earth, utilizes satellite imagery to map pretty much every corner of the planet, but government sensitivity in China to online maps revealing military facilities or state secrets risks getting Google into hot water in China... All over again.

New rules from out of Beijing last month stipulate that all online mapping services operating in China must apply for a license in order to continue their business here. By the end of this month we'll find out if any Web sites, mapping companies or GPS providers have failed to make the cut--and Google could well be one of them.

(The Wall Street Journal first reported on this, earlier this month).

I've always found Google's maps and satellite images in China to be rather out of date--my five-year-old apartment complex is just about starting to be built according to the current Google Maps satellite photo of my street--and they're notably not available at the most zoomed-in level, in contrast to the very recent and crystal-clear images of much of Europe and North America. This is presumably as much information as Google has been allowed to collate in China.

Google's main rival in China, Baidu, has a good map app, but it doesn't provide satellite photo imagery. Bing's online maps does offer satellite photo imagery, but it is also outdated--by five years, too, I guess--and it covers only city centers, in contrast to Google's wider coverage.

In addition, civilian GPS in China is deliberately pretty inaccurate. So when I checked in somewhere with a location-sharing Web site, using 3G, I noticed that my location was inaccurate to the tune of anywhere from 20m to 100m.

Military secrets
But all those safeguards and red herrings are clearly not enough for Beijing, which is clearly jumpy about Google Earth and Maps providing and annotating such birds' eye views. Officials familiar with the licensing matter have not been prepared to comment on Google's license application. I'd say it's fairly unlikely that Google will be outlawed from this market, but its already very stunted development with Google Maps in China--in contrast to the freer environment in Hong Kong and Taiwan, which have Street View and newer images in their Google Maps--could well be limited further, with Google perhaps having to blur out some sensitive military sites (despite images of them being already very vague and outdated).

This is all rather jiving, with the mainland looking like a less-and-less friendly place for Web startups, risking bleeding talent to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other countries.

As an aside, the recent Nasdaq IPO of Chinese satnav leader AutoNavi inadvertently revealed some of the mechanics of applying for this new online mapping license, and all the regulatory hurdles that it--and Google--face.