Google will finally be able to provide real-time driving and walking directions in South Korea, The New York Times reported. The company has received permission from the nation’s Transport Ministry to export geographic data out of the country, which will allow it to provide GPS services as well as detailed listings for restaurants and other businesses.
“We welcome today’s decision and look forward to our ongoing collaboration with local officials to bring a fully functioning Google Maps to Korea,” Google’s senior executive Cris Turner told the NYT in a statement. However, the approval is contingent “on the condition that strict security requirements are met,” a spokesperson from the Transport Ministry said. Those conditions reportedly restrict Google from displaying sensitive military sites and longitude and latitude coordinates.
South Korea has generally restricted the export of 1/5000 scale map data over national security concerns, as it’s still technically at war with its neighbor North Korea. Google hasn’t been able to provide mapping directions or business details since it arrived in the nation, though it has applied twice in 2007 and 2016.
This lack of data sharing has reportedly been a bone of contention in trade talks with the US. Google argued that it was unfairly handicapped by the restrictions that allowed local apps like Naver to thrive.
However, critics in the nation have expressed concern that Google could now come in and monopolize the market. “If Naver and Kakao are weakened or pushed out and Google later raises prices, that becomes a monopoly. Then, even companies that rely on map services — logistics firms, for example — become dependent [on Google],” geography professor Choi Jin-mu told Reuters.
