April 19, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] The South Korean government will make a decision next week whether to allow global giant Google to export government-supplied map data outside the country, a government official said Nov. 13.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, which supervises mapping policy, put off a decision on Google‘s recent request at its latest decision-making panel in August.

It will hold a second-round meeting with officials from foreign, defense and other-related ministries next week to make a decision, according to the official.

“The exact date has not yet been fixed,” the official said. “We will determine the schedule around Wednesday this week.”

Google had made such a request in 2010 to offer full-fledged mapping services, including vehicle navigation and driving directions, in South Korea, one of the world’s most wired nations.

But it has been continuously rejected by the government, which cited South Korea‘s National Security Law, drafted more than a half century ago to fight communism. The law bans the Seoul government from sending such map data to other countries.

(theinvestor@heraldcorp.com)