Mar
23
Not So Fast There, Buster
Posted by Clif Burns at 4:40 pm on March 23, 2010
Category: Iran Sanctions • Sudan
The folks over at the (unofficial) Google Earth Blog are all excited that Google Earth might soon be available for download in Sudan, Syria and other sanctioned countries. Export Law Blog reported earlier that Google was blocking downloads of Google Earth from IP addresses allocated to Sudan.
The cause of celebration by the Google Earthers is the recent announcement by the Office of Foreign Assets Control that permits downloads in Sudan and Iran of certain free Internet related software. However, I think the Earthers have donned their party hats a little bit too soon because that general license doesn’t appear to cover programs like Google Earth. That license is limited to
software incident to the exchange of personal communications over the Internet, such as instant messaging, chat and e-mail, social networking, sharing of photos and movies, web browsing, and blogging.
Although there are aspects of Google Earth that permit users to share certain photographs, that is far from the principal function of the program, which is to provide detailed information on various locations around the world based on satellite photos of those locations. That’s not quite the same thing as instant messaging or blogging software covered by the newly announced general license.
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9 Comments:
Cliff I was surprised to not see a comment by you on the gearthblog…
What about the “Berman Amendment†enacted in Section 2502(a) of the 1988 Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act, P.L. 100-418, that says: “The authority granted to the President by this section does not include the authority to regulate or prohibit, directly or indirectly –
“the importation from any country, or the exportation to any country, whether commercial or otherwise, regardless of format or medium of transmission, of any information or informational materials, including but not limited to, publications…â€
@export geek. OFAC has taken the position that software, because of its interactive capabilities, is not information or informational materials under the Berman amendment. That seems hard to justify for software like Google Earth, which is basically just a gateway to a visual database, but easier to understand for, say, software that calculates targeting trajectories.
Actually, I would guess that Google has submitted a request for guidance on this issue. So, I think we will find out who’s right pretty soon.
I’ve updated my story (where the original reporting was) with a response to your post:
http://www.ogleearth.com/2010/03/google_earth_co_2.html
Well, ok, but if I were GoogleEarth, I’d go for that Advisory Opinion….
@Stefan. Granted that Google may have told you that they thought they were covered but did they point to the language in the general license to which they were referring? I’m with ExportMan and would get an AO first.
Maybe they already did? 🙂
@Stefan: Most AOs — particularly one that so significantly departs from the language of the General License — are posted on OFAC’s site and, as of now, nothing on this has been posted. Since you say you have contacts at Google that you’ve been asking about this, why don’t you ask that question specifically and let us know? That would, indeed, but interesting if Google did get an AO on this.
