What caused France to seemingly start this practice in 2020? ESRI's 2020 August basemap includes a 50cm unblurred Maxar WV02 image of Gravelines Nuclear Power Station captured on Aug 17, 2016.[1] In their 2020 September basemap revision, the same image from Maxar WV02 is then blurred.

The image chosen by ESRI (and since blurred) for their basemap until they switched it to a Jun 3, 2023 Maxar GE01 alternative image was:[2]

Catalog ID: 1030050053F98A00 Sensor: WV2 Resolution: 50 cm Min Resolution: 0.57593 Max Resolution: 0.60326 Acquisition Date: 08-17-2016 Acquisition Time: 11:18:32.379526 UTC Off-Nadir: 29.8° Sun Azimuth: 165.3° Target Az. Min: 0° Target Az. Max: 0° Target Az.: 0° Sun Elevation: 52.0° Cloud Cover: 5% Band Count: 8

If someone were to order and pay for this specific archived satellite imagery through a reseller, would it be blurred? What about newer imagery that ESRI etc haven't added to their basemaps(s)? Seemingly the blurring is being done by the likes of Google, ESRI, etc who supply public basemap imagery, and not by the organisation/company collecting the imagery off the satellite constellation?

With the expansion of China's fleet of optical and radar satellites (such as Siwei Gaojing-1 at a claimed 20-30cm resolution), is there an agreement amongst China, US, Europe, Japan (and other countries) that China will blur French power stations, and Europe will blur Chinese power stations in return? If not, I suppose anyone that cares for it will use American/European satellite imagery providers for imagery of China, and Chinese imagery providers for imagery of the US/Europe.

[1] https://livingatlas.arcgis.com/wayback/#mapCenter=2.13709%2C...

[2] https://imagehunter-api.apollomapping.com/static/img/preview...