Research on the pricing principles and pricing trends in public Geospatial information
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Xv, J.; 2Li, G.; 3Xia, Y.; 4Wu, H.
1WUHAN UNIVERSITY,SCHOOL OF INFORMATION MANAGEMENT Email: xukeywhu@163.com
2WUHAN UNIVERSITY,SCHOOL OF INFORMATION MANAGEMENT Email: imiswhu@aliyun.com
3WUHAN UNIVERSITY,SCHOOL OF INFORMATION MANAGEMENT Email: xyk@whu.edu.cn
4WUHAN UNIVERSITY,SCHOOL OF ECONOMY MANAGEMENT Email: carol_2002124@aliyun.com
Abstract
In modern society, geospatial information is a powerful engine for economic growth, which improves innovations, enables jobs and increase citizens’ quality of life. It is estimated that about eighty percent of all government information has a geographic component (FGDC, 2007)[ FGDC (2007). 2006 FGDC Annual Report, at http://www.fgdc.gov/library/whitepapers-reports/annual%20reports/2006-report/html/index_html]. Therefore, assessing and pricing the value of public geospatial information products are very important. The product of services and infrastructures are particularly complex, due to the specific characteristics of its public goods and the nature of digital products, the costs of digital geospatial information services are high and revenues cannot always cover the costs. So it is necessary to research the cost and economic benefits related with pricing issues for large and growing organizations/corporations which have been built on collecting, organizing, and analyzing public geospatial data. In this paper, the author reviews the evolution of pricing policies which usually band with kinds of laws and regulations of Freedom of information in public information reuse around the world, comparing implementation effects of different pricing models and analyzing the financial mechanisms in Europe and US. It should be evident that the pricing strategies could raise many questions- social and economic, economic sustainability and information equality, technology and culture, regulatory and otherwise. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the regulations on models of public geospatial information pricing, especially focusing on funding and cost issues, such as: who should pay for public geospatial information, what’s the price conditions, and charge level should be put to support geospatial information reuse. In particular, it shed light on the factors which could influence the pricing models to support the business models of production based on public geospatial information.
Keywords
pricing principles; pricing trends; Geospatial information