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First Google Maps Hack Takedown
An anonymous reader writes "Despite "users accelerating innovation" with Google Maps the 'hacks' are not immune from Google's legal team, who have taken down "Google Wallpapers for violating the terms of agreement.
From a quick skim through the terms it would seem that most sites using the Google Maps data are in violation. Are Chicago Crime and Google Sightseeing next to go?" It may be a shame to shut down Google Maps offshoots, but that has to be the nicest take-down note I've ever seen; it's polite, friendly and reasonable. Update: 06/08 21:22 GMT by T : Below, a few more of the current uses for Google Maps.
An anonymous reader submits "The AP is running a story about the multiple uses for Google Maps. Among the uses, Tracking sexual predators in Florida, Guiding travelers to the cheapest gas nationwide, Pinpointing $1,500 studio apartments for rent in Manhattan, and Finding crime in Chicago. It'll be interesting to see if Google allows these sites to remain online or not."
Funny, you can still get to the python script that generates the wallpapers from the cached pages of http://gmerge.2ni.net/ on Google itself:
e vinux.org/~2ni/gmerge/+google+maps+wallpaper&hl=en
:)
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:lNdeCgLHUdwJ:l
Get it while its still there!
--greg Vulcan quiescent... Q: What machine shutdown with this message?
So if RIAA sent you a bouquet of flowers with a cute, humorous, handwritten greeting card personally signed by the PR manager informing your court appearance date, it wouldn't be so bad?
I don't think there is anything wrong for a listed company to protect its interest, control its IPs and maximize its profit, but the fanboy twist is totally unnecessary.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
...at least be nice about it?
i hope my favorite mashup, google housing, that uses the craigslist rental pages won't get taken down!!
http://www.housingmaps.com/
No...
.*AA any day.
1. Lawyers
2. Due Dates
3. Use of the word "compliance"
4. Use of the word "further action"
5. Nice invitation to a developers conference.
I'll take that over the
If religous zealots don't believe in Evolution, then why are they so worried about bird flu?
It sounds like Google Maps had to sign an agreement not to let the image data be used for commercial purposes. I wonder if they got a letter telling them to take down the offending site or be sued?
I read the internet for the articles.
I love google, and google maps is wonderful to play with. I had actually considered building something like the Chicago Crime page, but given the terms of service, thought I'd better not. I can see Google's point. They are providing a free service for individuals. Haveing another person/group/company use that freedom to build a new service and possibly profit off of it at the expense of the individuals it was created for is rough.
That being said, I think there is a lot of potential for other uses of Google Maps, and hopefully at some point, Google will allow some sort of licenses for use other than personal.
I must say... they really are, "not being evil".
I've recieved a DMCA takedown notice before. Most aren't pretty. Personally, I never understood why most DMCA takedown notices were taken directly to ISP level, without even a word to the webmaster.
In this case, Google sent a nice letter, requesting they take it down, and even explaining why. This is far superious to any other company takedown letter I've ever seen.
Jay | http://oldos.org
...and then we finish the job with a Slashdotting. Nice.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Are Chicago Crime and Google Sightseeing next to go?
Unfortunately yes, but that's because of us, not their violation of terms with Google.
If these walls could talk they'd probly still ignore me. --MF DOOM
I'm actually surprised Google let others leech on their bandwidth like this without paying them or anything. Same with e.g. GoogleFS and other hacks. Either this is a sign of more things to come, or it's just one of few sites they didn't like even with their highly relaxed stance about others leeching on their services.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Google Maps uses a fixed longitude/latitude distance ratio of ~0.772, while the true ratio depends on latitude (the ratio should be cos(latitude)). So Google Map is optimized for 39.5 of latitude (N or S), and the maps are increasingly distorted as you go toward the poles or the equator.
For example, Anchorage is stretched horizontally by a factor of 1.60 (yup those should be right angles).
MapQuest is similarly distorted, but Yahoo Maps is not.
"but that has to be the nicest take-down note I've ever seen; it's polite, friendly and reasonable."
Many years from now, we will see a similar Slashdot post when Google becomes the New World Order:
Dear Bill,
The GoogleOS team recently noticed that you guys have had your asses handed to you, by us. We commend you on your many years of somehow staying at the top, despite the fact that you sorely neglected securing your software. Sorry we had to break your record; but your evil violated the official Evil Google TOS, listed on our home page.
Lots of love and warm tapioca,
Larry and Sergei
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
They might as well just post the offending URL here. Down quicker than you can say "Service Unavailable".
I used Google maps once, and I got SO lost in downtown Seattle. Their service is nice and full of features, but I prefer simple accuracy over fancy graphics anyday, especially when it means getting lost in the maze of one-way streets and idiot drivers that is downtown of any major city.
No, Google is good at a lot of things, but right now, maps is NOT one of those things.
Don't worry. I'm sure the maps will be better once Google Maps is out of beta.
You wouldn't trust a beta service to do something as vital as navigation, now would you?
For more information, click here.
You couldn't *pay* for the publicity that people like /. readers, admins, developers give for Google.
Know the first thing I tell a new user who know bugger all about the Internet? www.google.com. In fact, I usually set it as their home page to make my life easier.
That translates directly into advertising revenue, and I do it because they have a spectacularly good search system, very cool add on tools and they let us play with them for free. They know *exactly* what they're doing and I'm fine with it.
Deleted
I don't see anyone arguing the merits of Google's action, so I will. From what I can see from the Google cache of the web site, I see that following:
This gives Google good reason to shut down "Google Wallpapers" as it stands. I don't think it Google has any claims against the python script itself, just its users (which includes "Google Wallpapers").
This differs from "Google Sightseeing" and "Chicago Crime" (as far as I know, since I can't verify util the sites are back up), which only link to maps on Google, which means
I agree, I mean damn...BSD has its own section, and its DEAD!
I know what you're thinking. Did I forward 65,535 packets or 65,536 packets?
You almost had it. Google's ownership of copyrights actually does allow them to set the terms that they have. You can use their service however you see fit for the most part, but you can't COPY (or rebroadcast, or make a derivative work from, etc.) the information except under the rights they grant. It's not a contract; it's a license. It's the same mechanism the GPL uses to restrict what can be done with GPL-licensed software.
On two occasions in the last few weeks I've tried to use the point-to-point directions based on post codes.
/.ers, it's an alpha release for us.
The information is utterly incorrect and extremely ambiguous.
Take note, fellow UK
Google is releasing a new beta project called Google Posters. With it, you will be able to have large poster sized satellite maps of any point of interest.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
How did the parent get modded insightful?
:)
The maps are a copyrighted work. By default, you can't redistribute derivatives of that work unless the copyright holder explicitly grants permission.
The terms of service explain your rights to the content... they don't restrict them.
And yes... Fox can't dictate how you watch television. But try recording their lineup, stripping the commercials, and putting them on the Internet.
- You take someone elses content and pass it off as yours (even if you say "gee thanks google")
- Violate a Terms of Use agreement. Even if it's the ToU is hopelessly vague you can bet that you'll get a call as soon as your site gets popular enough
- You rush headlong into making a beta API the centerpiece of your website. Yeah, do it because it's neat, but don't whine when it breaks unless you want people to say "what the hell were you even thinking?". Even if it's Google's endless beta phase, if you rely on behaviour of a beta app, and then your site/app breaks... tough noogies.
The gyst is that Google is a company that makes a product and wants to make money and has investors blah blah blah..., just like Microsoft or Wallmart. You can argue tell your blue in the face about right/wrong, nice/not nice, good/evil, but the simple fact is that if you do something that legalize says you shouldn't do, and you get burned... don't be surprised. Google is going to oversee what people are doing with the googemaps... if they like it, they'll take the idea and incorporate it into their business model, if they don't like it (don't like == taxes resources or threatens revenue), the lawyers come knocking.AFAIK, the Mafia from days of old would send a pre-ransom letter to potential victims that was flowing with praise and gratitude. The idea was to make a normally unpleasant act easier for both parties - nobody gets physically injured and the correspondence is very civil.
So yeah, being polite doesn't mean that everything's cool.
Anyway...
more likely, since every other company sends harshly worded C&D letters, maybe Google just wants to be different.
The real problem with both Google Maps and MapQuest is the underlying data. Both get their street data (at least in large part) from the same company: TeleAtlas.
This is the company that still hasn't picked up on the fact that many roads near here were renumbered four years ago to meet 911 law requirements. My company's official postal address is 2075 High Hill Rd., but TeleAtlas still thinks the only valid block number for this road is 200-299.
The Google Maps team recently noticed your Google Maps tile "stitcher"
to see developers interested in our products and we commend you on the
service. That said, we would appreciate it if you voluntarily remove
your service and stop using Google Maps on your web site. The service
violates the Maps Terms of Service available at
http://www.google.com/help/terms_local.html, and jeopardizes our
ability to make Google Maps available to the public because it
encourages non-personal use of Google Maps.
If you have any questions or concerns, or if we have contacted the
wrong people, please feel free to contact me directly. Otherwise,
amueltc please let us know as soon as possible when the service has been
removed.
Thanks,
Bret Taylor
Product Manager, Google Maps
Get your Unix fortune now!
so hosting a site could be a problem, but how about something like greasemonkey on firefox to do it locally? would that get around the restriction?
d00d u r n trbl...
My patience is infinite, my time is not.
They use GDT/TeleAtlas Data and guess what, they don't have the right to allow people to make derivitave works of TeleAtlas's work. I guess they could wait till Teleatlas sued them and the offending sites, but they probably don't want to lose their data license. This would be kind of like if you recorded a radio show that played a song (which they licensed the ability to play) then when you were selling or giving away copys on your website they asked you to stop.
It is ludicrous to claim that Google invested that much in the original content, since everyone just gets it from US Geological Survey.
So, go to the National Atlas and download and use to your heart's content. If that is not good enough, then go download all the data you can imagine. Still not enough, you can access all the layers via web services that comply with specifications published by the Open Geospatial Consortium at run time from your own web pages.
Now, write your congressmen and tell them how you appreciate that they made all this available to you, the citizen, for free, instead of spending all that tax money only to add a fee that makes it prohibitive for all but corporations who can be gatekeepers to keep you out. And hope that this doesn't become another casulty of Iraq budgets.
While you are at it, start a USGS support mailing list and an open source project to keep this sort of alive.
TerraServer relies on PD USGS data, so they don't have to worry about their data providers limiting redistribution. Unfortunately, this means that they don't have any vector street capabilities, as TIGER doesn't quite cut it for routing.
For the most part, though, I prefer looking at the topo image anyway.
I have to say that sending a polite, could you not do this, e-mail is very cool of google. For a time, I ran a radio station off of my server. Not many people listened to it, but anyhow, I got a letter from ASCAP asking me to not do it.
There's letter was much more legalese ridden, etc, ultimately, they had the decency to send me a warning notice before they sicked a pack of lawyers onto me. After it was clear to me that they were serious about it, I stopped.
If I was swapping songs and the RIAA sent me a letter saying, "hey could you please stop?", I probably would. Instead, they'd probably just sue me, and charge me a lot of money I don't have.
So yeah, there's something to be said for how you say things.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Yes. Google does, in fact.
The cache for the page, Linked here, has a link to the executable. The link still works. Get it while it's hot.
In fact, I think every person that makes a google utility should make an executable version for this very reason. It would save you bandwidth, it would save me loading time. Release it GPL and someone can make a multi-utility. Sounds great. Get to it, programmers!
They don't look square, they look as though it's a perspective drawing, which a map isn't supposed to be. Check out a similar Yahoo Map for comparison. If you put a protractor down on a printout of that map, you'd see 90 degree angles (more or less, I suspect). Not so on the Google version.
Breakfast served all day!
No. In fact, anyone can go and take a picture of anything in public.
;)
Now, if it was taking pictures of *inside* your house, you might have an issue.
Don't count your messages before they ACK.
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/ I just wanted to let people know that the latest CVS of NASA World wind has a plugin engine that allows people to do the same thing (Their is even a plugin already made to do it!)
to thunderous applause.
It's very necessary. Consider:
Things google could have done: 1) sued. 2) threatened to sue until you settled for $3000 (yeah, I'm talking to you DirecTV!). 3) Claimed rights they don't actually have 4) contacted his ISP and gotten him shut down.
Things google actually did: 1) asked him respectfully and nicely to stop. 2) provided a legitimate reason for the same.
I've never seen a C&D that friendly. Style makes a big difference in things like that, and shows that google "gets it" and isn't throwing their weight around needlessly.
No. In fact, anyone can go and take a picture of anything in public.
Now, if it was taking pictures of *inside* your house, you might have an issue.
I was making a bad joke about the roof, of course, but I do want to point out that photography in public isn't a copyright issue, it's more of a nebulous "do you have the right to use my image?" issue that isn't completely defined in the law.
It's not quite as simple as "you can photograph anyone or anything in public"... Using anyone's image (or an image of their business or property, outside or in) for commercial purpose without permission leaves you open for a civil suit. That goes for everything from advertising to hollywood movies to art gallery exhibition to porn on the web. Journalism isn't even excluded, though it would be difficult to win a case against a news outlet. But even photojournalists try to get personal and location releases when they can.
You're inviting trouble, for example, to use a photo of a woman subathing or the exterior of a business without the subject's written consent. It's not techincally illegal-- but you're also not covered by a law that says you CAN do it. Not unless the subject is a celebrity or politician.
Also, there are actually few areas that are truly "in public." A strip mall or shopping mall, for example, belongs to someone-- and that includes everything, even the parking lot. A city street is public, but you don't have the explicit freedom to use a picture of a business' storefront.
AOL Instant Messenger's Terms of Use forbid use of third party clients from connecting to the network. How come whenever AOL tries to lock out third party clients it is evil, but when Google does it, it's okay? Both are terms of service violations.
Grandparent hit it head on: enough fawning over Google.