Commodification of Geographic Information: An Examination of Google Street View

The paper discusses the commodification of geographical information over the internet through property regime examination, focusing on Google Street View as an example. It analyzes how geographical information is integrated into digital economy and explores the legal framework regulating traditional categories of geographic information. The paper also evaluates the strategy for literature research and suggests further work.

Paper summary and critique

Introduction
In this present paper, we will summarize and evaluate the research paper, namely, property
regimes and the commodification of geographic information: An examination of Google Street
View. The paper includes the evaluation, suggestion for further work and the description of the
strategy for literature research.
Summary of the paper
The research paper explains and analyzes the commodification of geographical information over
the internet through examining the property regime which emerges in this process. The
geographical information expansion over the internet can be understood in the context of a wider
political economy which is characterized by the increment in reliance of capitalism on
immaterial and digital economy growth in a dramatic manner. The geographical information
provides context and location which increase its demand rapidly from retailing to political
campaigning. The commodification is defined as the process of developing the goods which
imply the delineation of property rights for the economic exchange. The interdependencies
between the property regime and technological change in the context of geographical
information are illustrated by using the example of development in the Geoweb (Anon et al.,
2016). The paper also discusses the Copyright laws in the US for the protection of maps over the
internet. Maps are considered as the information device which enables to the analysis of
organization and transformation of data into geographical maps. The platform of Google Street
View released in 2007, and by the extensive primary data collection, it develops the competitive
advantage which promotes the use of Google Street View. In the creation of property regime, the

issues are outlined, namely, privacy and property. The argument in the paper contributes towards
the political economy of geographical information over the internet.
On the internet, the body of information is becoming graphical rapidly. It is due to the
development of categories for the geographical information and continues enrichment of various
type of information by using the geographical identifiers. As the use of geographical information
elaborates then, it is the key site multiple processes of commodification which transforms the
informational resources into market goods. The comprehensive political, economic analysis is
required for understanding the dynamics which drives the integration of geographical
information into the economy of digitalization. The main component of the analysis is to
describe the logics of creation and allocation of economic value from the information of
geography over the internet. The property regime scheme is addressed in the explained in the
after the analysis which is developed by the Ostrom and Schlager and geographical information
differentiated commodification process on the internet. The property regimes are basically an
arrangement which defines the rules and distribute rights with respect to the specific goods. The
paper explores the legal framework which regulates the traditional categories of the geographical
information. The property regime scheme is applied in the analysis of Google Street View which
is developed by the Schlager and Ostrom to explore an instance of geographical information over
the internet.
Evaluation of paper
The aim of the research is to analyze and describe the commodification of geographical
information over the internet through property regime examination. So the aim of the research
study is clear. The research is required in order to produce the clear understanding that how the

geographical information is integrated into digital economy which is supported by the literature
review on property regime and digital information. The previous research on the expansion of
geographical information motivates the conduct the research on the commodification of
geographical information. The author engages with the existing literature in an appropriate
manner by linking all the relevant literature with the current study. The qualitative analysis is
done to address the research questions. The political economic analysis is discussed but it is not
conducted in the research study which is unclear. The findings of the research study are not
clearly presented under separate heading by addressing the research aims. The findings can be
used to explore the new business opportunities related to the commodification of various type of
information. The contribution of Google Street View analysis is wide in order to understand
commodification of digital information. The importance of findings is not clearly explained by
the author and the literature review is related to the findings. The reconfiguration of rules,
practices and technologies have created new property regime for the economic and management
exploration of informational goods. There are no limitations of study specified in the paper.
The paper discusses the analysis of legal framework which regulates the traditional categories of
geographic information that have been destabilized in the innovation of technology process
which leads to the development of new informational goods with the respective property regime,
economic, rearticulating sociotechnical and legal relations. The paper explains the dynamics
which drives the integration of information of geography into the digital economy. The analysis
of the paper includes the explanation of logics of creation and economic value allocation from
the geographic information on the internet. Then the paper discusses the property regime scheme
which is developed by the Schlager and Ostrom with the explanation of differentiated
commodification process of the geographical information on the internet. The paper does not

consider the use of Google map in the criminology which needs to be considered in an account at
the time of legal framework analysis. The analysis in the paper explains an extension of the
property regime scheme by taking into account the challenges of digital information to the
property rights allocation and the consideration the technology role in the legal protection
transformation. The analysis of privacy with the property rights allocation finds that the in the
commodification of digital information the different values and logics have become intertwined
in an increasing manner.
Suggestions
The framework presented in the paper can be deployed productively in order to examine other
platforms of geographical information for example OpenStreetMap, Bing Maps, and others. It
can also be used to understand the commodification of various type of information for example
crowdsourced, satellite and health data. Other recommended can also be done on the various
topics related to the examination of Google Street View such as use of geographical information
for the mapping of U.S. traffic signs: Examination of Google Street View, cyber
commodification, Google Street View role in organizational Analysis, Role of Google Street
View in Criminology,
Strategy for literature search
It is defined as the strategy which is used to identify the previous study conducted on the
particular topic (Schneider et al., 2014). The literature review is basically an in-depth evaluation
of research which is already undertaken on the specific topic (Schroeder et al., 2015). It mainly
includes the scholarly articles, dissertation, books and other sources. The purpose of developing

the strategy is to critically evaluate the literature which is published on the specific topic. Firstly,
identify the component issues, primary keywords, and other alternative keywords. Then
formulate the problem and identify the keywords which help to determine the resources. Then
identify all potential data which includes key journals, internet search, multiple geographical
database, and others. After collecting the resources assessment of literature is conducted and
identifies the top five journals on the basis of its characteristics (Stiller et al., 2013). After
determining the resources utilize the resource effectively by selecting the particular technique of
search.

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Anon, (2016). [online] Available at:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/prod_object_assets/assets/235797774803918/paper_.pdf?
AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI64T2WG3XE7CMCLQ&Expires=1482996078&Signature=qYyH
%2FTK%2BfmO0R12siA0Ekijw%2BsM%3D#_=_ [Accessed 29 Dec. 2016].