Examiner Discusses SpotCrime's fear of Data Monopolies
Examiner article here
It would seem the marginal cost of sharing data once a police agency has formated their data for one outlet would be very small.
SpotCrime is capable of converting most any data format.
Additionally, SpotCrime has already been called more accurate by an independent technology expert.
We are encouraged by any police department that is taking steps to make their data more public. We caution that with the decreased cost of technology and free tools provided by Google that they do not overspend for long term consulting agreements.
An alternative approach would be distribute the data publicly through the internet allowing multiple organizations to map and analyze the data. Many cities in the US are following this example including Washington DC, Oakland, Baltimore, Chicago and Dallas.
SpotCrime contends that there are potentially many more benefits to making crime data fully public. New discoveries and platforms for this data are only hampered when data is held hostage by one vendor. Public crime data should be completely accessible to the public without any restrictions.
We stand behind this open data policy by re-distributing our data through FaceBook, Google Maps, Google Earth and through an IPhone optimized page. Additionally, we provide crime notifications through email and cell phone text messages.
Additionally, we've moved into collecting university crime data at our sister site Ucrime.com.
It would seem the marginal cost of sharing data once a police agency has formated their data for one outlet would be very small.
SpotCrime is capable of converting most any data format.
Additionally, SpotCrime has already been called more accurate by an independent technology expert.
We are encouraged by any police department that is taking steps to make their data more public. We caution that with the decreased cost of technology and free tools provided by Google that they do not overspend for long term consulting agreements.
An alternative approach would be distribute the data publicly through the internet allowing multiple organizations to map and analyze the data. Many cities in the US are following this example including Washington DC, Oakland, Baltimore, Chicago and Dallas.
SpotCrime contends that there are potentially many more benefits to making crime data fully public. New discoveries and platforms for this data are only hampered when data is held hostage by one vendor. Public crime data should be completely accessible to the public without any restrictions.
We stand behind this open data policy by re-distributing our data through FaceBook, Google Maps, Google Earth and through an IPhone optimized page. Additionally, we provide crime notifications through email and cell phone text messages.
Additionally, we've moved into collecting university crime data at our sister site Ucrime.com.
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