Abstract
Today many countries have applied the strategy of developing an information-oriented society and data infrastructure. Although varying it their details and means of realization, all these policies have the same aim - to build a global information society. Here in Russia this crucial role belongs to the Electronic (Digital) Earth initiative, which integrates geoinformation technologies in the Earth Knowledge Base (EKB). It i designed to promote the economic, social and scientific progress. An analysis of the problem has been done in the article.