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Comment by daenney | Hacker News Reader

Ha, I did not know that. I knew it came out of the Samsung accelerator, didn't know they were actually owned by Samsung. My guess is probably wrong in that case. However, from all that I can find it states they're supported by Samsung Research, to me that's not the same thing as 'part of' Samsung, which would imply ownership.

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> However, from all that I can find it states they're supported by Samsung Research, to me that's not the same thing as 'part of' Samsung, which would imply ownership.

You are correct. They are not owned by Samsung, they were simply part of the accelerator.

I could see how this would be a critical concept for Samsung, as it may need to position itself one day to be separate from the Google ecosystem.

Mapzen is Samsung according to their terms.

Actually, as someone else pointed out, in Mapzen's terms of service:

> These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern the terms by which you (if registering on behalf of yourself) or the entity you represent (if registering as a business) (“Customer,” “you” or “your”) may utilize the mapping tools and services made available by Samsung Research America, Inc. on behalf of its Mapzen business unit (“Mapzen˝ or ˝we˝ or ˝us˝ or “our”).

Seems they were actually part of Samsung. Makes me wonder why they shuttered Mapzen. I can see this being useful to them for Tizen amongst other things.

According to some people I knew who worked there, they were owned by Samsung

Perhaps- though the Mapzen name is trademarked by Samsung Electronics, Korea

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