Value of Public Data

Tue

Nov 27
2007

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It's long been known that the US Census Bureau's TIGER dataset bootstrapped the booming US geospatial industry. Many other countries haven't had free access to their public data, and this has correspondingly retarded their local geospatial industries. There was a fascinating article in The Guardian about the value of public data, containing this great line: The government's chief adviser on the subject has told ministers that the archive could be worth hundreds of billions of pounds to the national economy, rather than hundreds of millions previously estimated.

We've been watching and working with Carl Malamud, Larry Lessig, and projects like public.resource.org as they fight to free public information that's senselessly behind paywalls. We've felt for a long time that efficient markets require ubiquitous information and it's good to have respectable institutions (unlike we scurrilous Internet companies who obviously just want to push our hippy agendas or our own businesses) like the British Government beginning to realize that opening public data creates large amounts of private and public value.

We're only at the start of opening public data. The British Government is still to take substantial action to open public data—significantly, the Ordnance Survey still have their clammy greedy fingers on the public geospatial data. There will be dozens (hundreds) of exciting business built when this and other public data are opened, delivering value that wasn't possible from the closed data.

tags: the long view | comments: 5 | Sphere It
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Comments: 5

James [11.27.07 07:06 AM]

The current British Government is a big believer is opening up its data. It recently released (lost) the personal details of 25 million people, including bank accounts. :)

ian [11.27.07 08:18 AM]

i'm on your train, nat. Joe Walsh (as I am sure you know) has been keeping here eyes on INSPIRE in the EU, and it's far from clear how countries will implement the directive. i've been working with--and in many cases against--transit agencies, engaging in litigation to obtain spatial and scheduling data. much of this stems from a bureaucratic culture-the arguments of national security/safety are just a way of minimizing additional burdens. change the incentives (at the political level) and the changes can come, but politicians aren't exactly focused on these issues...

Sara [11.27.07 12:24 PM]

Great post! Data is often neglected and misunderstood as a valuable good. Unfortunately, resources are rarely adequately allocated to ensure it is released, much less in a timely way that is useful.

I could go on, and in fact did, here: http://blog.swivel.com/weblog/2007/11/the-value-of-al.html

Charles [12.04.07 05:51 AM]

We (at Guardian Technology) actually have a longstanding - since March 2006 - campaign on precisely this point (that's why the article appeared: it's part of our attempting to lever open this door).

One of the real challenges has been showing how having free (as in beer) data sourced from government will lead to more private-sector activity - that it will be enough to make up for the increased tax funding required (it's complicated).

What we really need to persuade government ministers is examples where free (government) data has led to private-sector growth - more so than if the government charges for that data and businesses build on it.

The best example of a free government-supplied data product stimulating the market I've come across is GPS: costs about $500m annually, generates far more than that in commercial revenues which are then taxable.

However we need more examples. I hadn't heard of the TIGER dataset. If you can point me to a study demonstrating how it did that, I'd be grateful.

Baden Hughes [02.14.08 11:14 PM]

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released significant chunks of its data over the last couple of years on the basis of publicly funded data should be publicly available, and this is driving quite a lot of innovation around information integration, alignment, visualisation, manipulation etc.

http://tinyurl.com/ytajbl