On Feb 26, 2:23 am, AnthonyP <[email protected]> wrote: > Interesting. So, by all accounts, my setup would more than likely be > against the Map ToS?
Not necessarily. Consider the following analogy: You run a library. The general public can come in, browse, sit down and read for as long as they want. You provide a card index so that they can locate books fairly easily if they know what they're looking for. All of this is provided free at the point of delivery. As well as this, you offer the option of paying to use a computer- based index which allows easier searching of attributes like the third word in the book title or the author's first name. It doesn't change the availability of the card index or the ability to browse. As well as that, you might offer the option of paying so that users could make a note of the book they've found, without having to access the card index or the computer index at all. Again it doesn't change the availability of the card index or the ability to browse. It would be possible for someone to use the card index to look for books written by "John"s or whose third title-word is "Google", or to look for a book they found before if they know their search criteria, but it's easier to use the additional value-added stuff if they're prepared to pay for it. Google's mission statement is [broadly] to make the world's information available to everyone for nothing, and that's the basis of the Terms of Service saying that maps must be freely available to everyone. So if there is money to be made it must come from adding value like improved searching or saving the results of searches. Or advertising based on searches, of course. The issue with 9.1 in the TOS is logging into the maps application. If you log in to a search portal then that's different. > I wish the wording wasn't so vague. It's not vague; but the principal problem is that trying to tie down how people use a computer application is like herding cats. Andrew --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Maps API" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Maps-API?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
