> That is because South Korean laws require that companies store core geospatial data locally, something Google has long refused to do.
Quote 2:
> That's because the SK government has refused to give Google access to their official map data, because of "security concerns".
Quote 3:
> Google said Tuesday it will accept the South Korean government's security requirements to remove coordinates for the Korean region from its map in order to secure approval to export high-precision map data overseas.
(via https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/business/tech-science/20250909/...)
(Quote 1) from the article is my prior understanding of the situation. Your claim (Quote 2) doesn't match my prior understanding either. I did some googling, and found additional reporting (Quote 3), which seems to be more precise and accurately contextualized than (Quote 1).
I am personally quite sympathetic to the posture of KR's government, regarding data sovereignty of high-precision map data. I understand that Google and other tech companies were always legally able to serve maps of SK of comparable quality from a datacenter in SK.