information. It is now possible for almost 
anyone to purchase personal computer 
systems and image processing software 
for very reasonable costs and display and 
process digital imagery at high speed and 
with relatively high data storage 
capacity, in comparison to recent years. 
Furthermore, as the internet expands and 
reaches ever more millions of users, 
access to freely-shared imagery from all 
over the world is now possible. Because 
of the decreased cost and increased 
proliferation of both powerful hardware 
and easy-to-use software interfaces, 
applications - in urban planning, 
pollution monitoring, population 
management, infrastructure planning, 
landscape architecture, etc. - of remotely 
sensed imagery have grown enormously. 
A World-Wide Trend Towards 
Privatizing of National 
Meteorological Services, and “Cost- 
Recovery.” The growth of a 
commercial industry for remote sensing 
data has recently come into direct 
conflict with another significant 
international commercial trend: the 
move towards complete or partial 
privatization of national meteorological 
services, and implementation of policies 
of “cost recovery.” This represents a 
direct recognition of the existence of a 
growing commercial market for remote 
sensing data. 
This trend has been most noticeable in 
Europe. In recent years, cost recovery 
policies have been implemented in the 
United Kingdom, Germany, France, 
Finland, Ireland, and Denmark, among 
others, and by facilities multilaterally 
supported by the European Community. 
However, various U.S. agencies have 
maintained cost recovery policies for 
years, although the legal framework for 
US. government cost recovery is 
different than for most European 
countries. 
However, countries that are now 
implementing cost recovery procedures 
often find themselves in direct 
competition with private firms selling 
data products. In some cases, they must 
compete with firms that are selling data 
they have originally generated and 
42 
shared freely with other countries. This 
is known as “re-exporting” of data, and 
the recent contentious debate at the 
Twelfth Congress of the World 
Meteorological Organization (WMO) dealt 
with this problem, and exemplified the 
tension between free and open exchange 
of data and the development and 
exploitation of a commercial market for 
that data. 
A Debate Over The Public/Private 
Sector Interface. With the growth of 
the commercial market for remote 
sensing data, a long-standing debate over 
commercialization of public remote 
sensing systems has come to the fore. 
This debate is different in different 
countries, because of differences in legal 
and national policies. The debate has 
been brewing for many decades and is 
now becoming more visible partly 
because of the growing power of 
economic forces. 
Currently, there exists significant 
confusion and ambiguity in both the U.S. 
and Europe over exactly how to re-shape 
government services to make them 
cheaper and more efficient, either 
through full or partial 
commercialization, or through 
privatization. For example, the  U.S. 
government turned over the selling, 
marketing and distribution of NASA 
Landsat imagery to the Eosat Corporation 
with the 1984 Landsat Act. However, 
shortly thereafter, the price for 
individual Landsat images rose to a high 
of $4300 per image, infuriating large 
sectors of potential users who could no 
longer afford the data. The difficulty of 
the commercial transition to Eosat was 
highlighted by a negotiation between the 
U.S. government and Eosat to purchase 
imagery for a global coverage in order to 
calibrate the Mission to Planet Earth. 
When Eosat announced that the price 
would be a hefty $50 million, the failure 
of the system was clear. By the early 
1990s, the transfer to Eosat was largely 
perceived to be a failure, and with the 
1992 Remote Sensing Policy Act, the 
commercialization of Landsat was 
reversed. 
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B6. Vienna 1996 
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