Last week we covered the unfolding debate over the World Bank's decision to make Google Map Maker available to partner governments and multilaterals. Some observers view the deal as a bad thing given the somewhat restrictive Terms of Service imposed by Map Maker that lock up user-submitted geo-data in a distinctly non-open data way. Today…
Earlier this week, we blogged about our concerns over the deal that the World Bank and Google recently announced that encourages the Bank to make Google Map Maker widely available to its client governments and other multilaterals. Our basic concern was that Map Maker's Terms of Service (TOS) appear to lock public data submitted through…
Yesterday we tweeted that we were hearing concerns about the recently signed deal between Google and the World Bank that will allow the Bank to provide Google's Map Maker platform to governments and multilaterals around the world. We've dug around a little more and our concerns haven't dissipated: this is a big deal and could…
I wanted to share some thinking we've been working on here at Global Integrity for several months: the idea of a shared, collaborative work space for transparency and accountability organizations based in the Washington, DC area. Last summer, something obvious dawned on us: 1) there are lots of groups based in Washington, DC that work…
As we ring in the New Year here at Global Integrity, we are happy to welcome a new intern to our ranks, Matt Garlipp. After three days on the job, I sat down with Matt to learn more about his interest in governance, anti-corruption and why out of all the great NGOs in Washington, DC…
Photo credit: US Mission Geneva (pictured: US nominees for Internet Freedom Fellows (2011), including our friend Andreas Harsono from Indonesia and now-world famous Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas.) Egypt's military government continues to find novel ways of damaging its international image, this week raiding the offices of 17 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and questioning whether foreign-funded NGOs were responsible for…