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Google Claims a TOS Violation On RouteBuilder For Using the Map API (medium.com)
New submitter acm writes: RouteBuilder has been using the Google Maps API to help people share their routes (bicycling, hiking, etc) for a decade. Last week, Google sent an email demanding Routebuilder stop using the API: "In particular,your application violates clause 10.4(c), which does not allow developers to create a wrapper — an application that re-implements or duplicates the Google Maps website or mobile app, or any of the Google Maps APIs."
Why did it take the Google Maps Team 10 years to decide they don't want pedometer-type sites to use their API?
because they're about to launch their own pedometer type site?
They'll probably better off with OpenStreetMaps anyway.
and give the finger to google.
I don't see why that site needs Google Maps specifically. Just exchange it for other service. OpenStreetMap is free and tiles are available by a couple different providers. There are others, such as Bing Maps and HERE Maps, but I have no idea about their TOS.
Do not rely on 3rd parties to continue to support/allow use of theri API. They can and will plug at any moment; always have a backup plan.
Google has a right to restrict people however they want with their APIs. This site, although useful, can clearly serve as an alternative to Google maps, unlike e.g. flightradar24 where the map is not the core functionality of the site. I am on Google's side in this conflict.
And why I avoid it. When you rely on third parties you have to play by there rules and often people jump onto a single third party for a variety of reasons. Mostly because there is some social or financial benefit. Examples: eBay (more people equal more sales/faster sales/etc) or Facebook (obviously if you want to chat with everyone you know in the real world multiple platforms doesn't work terribly well). We could avoid these one provider problems by developing decentralized systems where each cog in the machine performs part of the service thus eliminating the problem of having to rely on one person or accepting some TOS which is not in the users best interests. Unfortunately that business model tends not to benefit the company investing in that technology or not as much so. Which is why it's all the more important for people to avoid companies like Google, Microsoft, eBay, PayPal, and so on.
What happened? fit.google.com.
When you build on somebody's platform, it's more or less expected that this sort of thing can happen. So long as you fill a niche that they cannot or don't wish to, you are an asset, you make their platform better vs. the competition, as long as you don't do anything blatantly abusive or system-breaking, any little TOS details clearly don't forbid whatever you are doing. You might even get called onstage during some CES demo or given favorable marketing placement.
If your thing is either deemed a threat to the platform(as with Netscape's 'reduce windows to a set of poorly debugged device drivers' trash talking) or now overlaps with a feature that the platform owner wishes to add to their offerings; well, maybe you get acquired(as SoundJam MP became iTunes), maybe you'll just get squished. Happens every time.
From Wikipedia: Laches (/lætz/, la-chz, like "latches"; /letz/, lay-chz; Law French: "remissness", "dilatoriness," from Old French laschesse) refers to a lack of diligence and activity in making a legal claim, or moving forward with legal enforcement of a right, in particular with regard to equity; hence, it is an unreasonable delay that can be viewed as prejudicing the opposing [defending] party. When asserted in litigation, it is an equity defense, that is, a defense to a claim for an equitable remedy. The person invoking laches is asserting that an opposing party has "slept on its rights," and that, as a result of this delay, circumstances have changed, witnesses and/or evidence may have been lost or no longer available, etc., such that it is no longer a just resolution to grant the plaintiff's claim
I'm sure a good lawyer can remind the Oompa Loompas about how the law works.
They haven't complained for ten years? IANAL but I'd say it's too late to complain now.
But that'll be for the courts to decide.
why is parent modded down? Maybe by someone ignoring the legal sense of Laches?
Herve S.
Just switch to OpenStreetMaps and be done with it.
So be reasonable, cut Google some slack. Internet is huge and it will take time for certain things to be found.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
RouteBuilder is not Open Source, the site says:
Q: I'm building a website that would benefit from some of the features of RouteBuilder. Will you give me the source code for free?
A: I'm sorry, I'm not interested in giving away the source code behind this website for free. However, I am open to selling a license to use it.
Free use of Google Maps in applications comes with limits on how you can use it, and how many times you can hit the Google server for free. More than likely RouteBuilder exceeded these limits and Google asked RouteBuilder to purchase a licence, which they declined to do.
This is not news.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
By allowing it to continue complaint free for a decade Google has all but endorsed and given permission... they've essentially set a precedent that it's OK to do this which would substantially weaken their position should they end up in court.
Google has been tilting toward evil ever since Facebook passed it in views back in 2010 and at that moment everything we had done before became no good.
"You couldn't even beat Facebook"
It was great a place to work up until that day.
Laches (equity) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Laches refers to a lack of diligence and activity in making a legal claim...
Why did it take the Google Maps Team 10 years to decide
Google didn't take 10yrs to decide they don't want wrappers, they "decided" that when they wrote the terms of service.
Some pertinent questions.
When did routebuilder "decide" to ignore the TOS?
When did google "decide" to do something about it?
How does anyone know for certain what's in a TOS agreement if nobody ever reads it?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Laches is a defense in a lawsuit. There's no lawsuit here.
One option for me would be to rewrite routebuilder to run on another mapping platform, but with an infant at home and a full-time job, I frankly don’t have the time or energy.
I don't see why that site needs Google Maps specifically. Just exchange it for other service.
Because you, Anonymous Coward, haven't offered your services to port it within 14 days. Also because I'm the wrong person for the job at the moment, having never written a line of OSM code.
Ten years ago, Twitter was all the rage. People said it was a communications conduit and everyone was building a site or app that relied on Twitter.
I said then, and many times since then, that building a business totally reliant on some other service's "free" API is a huge mistake and a recipe for disaster.
People naturally shit all over me for my remarks. Responding correctly, that I had not built a multimillion dollar enterprise so I had no clue what I was talking about. They also rightly provided numerous examples of multimillion dollar corporations and individuals who had successfully done exactly what I recommended against. They utilized someone else's free API to build their site or app and make millions of dollars.
To date, I have yet to make a million dollars and I still feel that their business plan is stupid. So, who's right?
I guess I'd have to say that they should be happy that they lasted 10 years, but the party's over and I'll kick you in the nuts if you cry to me about it.
Dilbert on cloudy thinking.
I was doing a project that used their geocoding API at one point. Essentially you're only allowed to use it if you're planning on making a Google Map. You can't use it for any other purpose. You can't cache the results to save on redundant API calls. Luckily, I found an awesome alternative in OpenCage, which is backed by OpenStreetMap data and whose TOS couldn't be less restrictive.
When you don't understand the reason look to the money.
Google has a right to restrict people however they want with their APIs. This site, although useful, can clearly serve as an alternative to Google maps, unlike e.g. flightradar24 where the map is not the core functionality of the site. I am on Google's side in this conflict.
No, they have a *contract* with someone who has agreed to their TOS. But there is also a principle in law called "estoppel," where someone else relies on your act or omission to your benefit or there detriment and therefore you are prevented from doing thing X that is inconsistent with that act or omission historically; like you can't cancel their map API access after using it to spread goodwill around google maps for a decade. You ALSO have antitrust issues--this app is arguably a lot more than Google maps, not really a wrapper, and it can probably be fairly argued that Google is taking advantage of their market position to limit competition with expansions to their app. So if someone cares enough or has the money to actually fight this, while Google may ultimately win, it's far from guaranteed.
It turns out that you DON'T always have a right to change how you are doing business with someone unilaterally.
The guy doesn't want to open it up, and doesn't have time to convert it to Openstreet Maps (according to posts here), so unless Google makes a concession, maybe the best thing is to clone the concept as something open source? The functionality doesn't sound too hard to imitate?
I would have suggested the original author open source it, but the FAQ makes it sound like he doesn't really want to.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
When the google first launched they were were focused on not being evil, but times, oh they have changed!
They probably didn't exceed usage, Google tells you to have the client make the requests to their API. Each client, can make something like 2,500 requests per day to the gmaps api at zero cost to the website owner. There are a select few types of applications where that configuration isn't sufficient.
This is likely due to storage. I'd guess they're storing the lat/lon for too long and that's what's violating their ToS. 10 years could be so much "pilfered" lat/lon data without a business (permissive) license someone had to say "no more."
There are probably a lot of alternatives to this site. Anyone know why this made it on slashdot? Was it that widely used? I've been a bicycling regularly for 10 years and never heard of it. I personally think this seems like some personal shit that one of the editors is angry over. Trying to manipulate the audience into bitching at Google.
like you can't cancel their map API access after using it to spread goodwill around google maps for a decade.
Well they didnt do that. Assuming by "you" you mean Google, by "their" you mean the RouteBuilder developer and by "it" you mean RouteBuilder.
But there is also a principle in law called "estoppel," where someone else relies on your act or omission to your benefit or there detriment
Which does not apply here because of the violation of the TOS. Much like jailbreaks can be thwarted by removal of access to features on the basis that the jailbreak existed only by a violation of the TOS.
You ALSO have antitrust issues
No, not when there are perfectly viable alternatives that the developer simply does not want to use:
"One option for me would be to rewrite routebuilder to run on another mapping platform, but with an infant at home and a full-time job, I frankly don’t have the time or energy."
It turns out that you DON'T always have a right to change how you are doing business with someone unilaterally.
That's right, not always. But in this case it is a simple breach of contract.
Why Google is claiming that someone violated Star Trek - The Original Series???
GMaps API allows an app/page 2500 requests per day to their servers on the free platform, so you're mostly right. That's for ALL client apps coded with the same private developer key. If you distribute your app internally to a small business you can probably get by on the free license. If you sell your app, you'll be paying a Maps license fee of some kind.
There's no contract termination for exceeding your usage limits, btw. If you overcome the usage limits, your app receives 'too many requests' errors rather than data.
You're incorrect, they measure per client. It's extremely friendly. I know, I've been told this by their sales and consulted by their enterprise support team. You really only need to pay them if you're doing a lot of background processing of data.
You're incorrect. Google documentation makes it clear the limits are directly related to the API key that the app uses.
Just a little more evil....everyday!
Gonna steal you're idea's and never pay
We're just a little more evil since our founders went away.
Wasn't/isn't Google in battle with Oracle over the same thing? And lost too? So if ya cant beat them join them? I might be way wrong here.
Jack of all trades,master of none
RouteBuilder gives access to old-style Google Maps, which everybody loved, and impedes Google's forced migration to new-style Google Maps, which everybody hates.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
I see: an armchair lawyer is confabulating again. I suggest you read up on "estoppel". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You're delusional if you think that any court is going to force a software company to keep providing an outdated API because someone was using it for a few years for free while violating the TOS. Get a clue, man.
I may not reimplement or duplicate your app. I state that my app will be closed in 24 hours after you demonstrate that your app with similar functionality 1) exists, 2) existed before my app (as I believe it's a necessary prerequisite to "reimplement or duplicate") and 3) was accessible for the public so it was possible for me to know beforehand that such app exists. Google Maps does not count since it has no functionality to facilitate the route building.
Wait, didn't Google just finish arguing in some giant lawsuit that the company that creates the API can't own it or tell others what they can or can't do with it?
And why would this be an issue? Google gives away free use of the Maps API under certain restrictions. Why, being the developer, owner, and indeed the host of all the Google Maps infrastructure, shouldn't they be able to restrict people without commercial licenses from competing with their products? Google is not a commune, it's a company.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Disappearing step by step
But it's unfair that Google gets to take advantage of all the investments they make. Unfair, unfair, unfair.
like you can't cancel their map API access after using it to spread goodwill around google maps for a decade.
Well they didnt do that. Assuming by "you" you mean Google, by "their" you mean the RouteBuilder developer and by "it" you mean RouteBuilder.
Just like with Microsoft and Doc/Docx formats?
But there is also a principle in law called "estoppel," where someone else relies on your act or omission to your benefit or there detriment
Which does not apply here because of the violation of the TOS. Much like jailbreaks can be thwarted by removal of access to features on the basis that the jailbreak existed only by a violation of the TOS.
You ALSO have antitrust issues
No, not when there are perfectly viable alternatives that the developer simply does not want to use:
"One option for me would be to rewrite routebuilder to run on another mapping platform, but with an infant at home and a full-time job, I frankly don’t have the time or energy."
Ah yes, you fucktarded shitdot sheeple and your double standards. When Microsoft faced anti-trust legislation they had viable competition, and you faggots here at shitdot claimed communist linsux was viable then turned around and claimed Microsoft was a monopoly. Typical of fudgepacking, twinkie sucking faggots.
It turns out that you DON'T always have a right to change how you are doing business with someone unilaterally.
That's right, not always. But in this case it is a simple breach of contract.
As someone else pointed out, seems you're loving Larry and Sergei's dick planted up your ass, and that's with Richard "RMS Titanic" Stallman's cock in your mouth.Of course you fucktarded shitdot sheeple are nothing more than a bunch of communist loving fucktarded faggots who should go and collectively slit your fucking wrists.
GO AHEAD FUCKING FLAME AWAY
OR WASTE YOUR GODDAMNED
MOD POINTS FUCKTARDED SHITDOT SHEEPLE OR BETTER
YET GO SLIT YOUR FUCKING WRISTS
FUCKTARDED SHITDOT SHEEPLE
"Nuh uh!"
"Uh huh!"
"Nuh uh!"
"Uh huh!"
Why don't one of you provide an actual link to back up your assertion? This should have been included on that poll of fallacies.
All the same valid points you raised about MS and IE back in the day, I assume?
No, it's unfair that they "bait and switch" this way. They produced an open API. An entire app ecosystem evolved around the Google free APIs, and Google's commercial rivals were forced out of business. Now there's no-one else for these sites to get their mapping from, and Google's squashing them.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
The "client" of the Maps API is you, not your user.
Client ID: A client ID is given to you when you sign up as a Google Maps APIs Premium Plan or Google Maps API for Work customer. Premium Plan customers typically can choose to use a client ID or an API key.
Example of loading an API with a client ID: &client=gme-companyname
They're not giving 2500 hits per user for free. Link as requested: https://developers.google.com/maps/faq#usagelimits
Relevant section of the terms and conditions is here:
If my web site or application becomes suddenly popular, will my maps stop working?
If you are using Web Services APIs, we allow 2,500 free requests per day. If you exceed the free quota, you have access to pay-as-you-go quota up to 100,000 requests in a day, if you enroll for automated billing.
If they gave 2500 hits per user for free, then it wouldn't matter how popular your application became. As others have said here, the limit is on the developer's API key.
.. either they developed the Nutt inside the Google walls, or accidentally hired the antisocialite.
These things take time people!
Antisocialism is a Skill, not an Artform.
That's a pretty lame excuse, nearly all the google maps competitors cloned the google maps JavaScript API for their services, and the differences are often minor enough that you can write a simple wrapper to handle it.
And that *you* I quoted in bold does not include *you* (yes, you, the poster). Otherwise, you would be doing it yourself. If you cannot or do not want to, for whatever reason, would that also be a "lame excuse"? As Torvald once said, talk is cheap, show me the code.
Well, there's OpenStreetMap, which all third-parties should be using since, as TFA proves, using the Google Maps API is not safe.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
How could they have performed a bait and switch when the TOS of the API haven't changed?
This has always been against the TOS, if routebuilder doesn't want to abide by the license, they can pay for ESRI instead.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I briefly looked at routebuilder.org and, as far as I can tell, it uses Google Maps itself, not some "wrapped" replacement of it. It just seems to tell you how long some segments are, which appear to all be drawn using the API.
I admit that I am probably missing something but at first appearance, there isn't anything here which violates Google Maps TOS.
This makes me wonder if most things that use Google Maps, may be unwittingly and obscurely violating the ToS in some way that only lawyers, but no developers, would ever understand.
Does anyone understand what, exactly, Google is saying the violation is?
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
I suppose Bill Cosby is wondering the same thing about this situation.
Have gnu, will travel.
Well, there's OpenStreetMap, which all third-parties should be using since, as TFA proves, using the Google Maps API is not safe.
Indeed, and it's nice of the /. editors to send us all this reminder of the fact that you shouldn't ever build anything that depends on a "service" provided by just one company. They can and sometimes do terminate such services, often without notice, or modify them so what you're using them for no longer works. And they tend to get access to all the info about your stuff, to use as they like.
In particular, any organization that depends on a company's service is run by fools. You might be able to use services like "the Cloud" as a sort of backup, if you don't mind the company seeing the contents of all your files. But you must plan for the day when the company you're using cuts you off. The only real way to do this is to make sure that you have (and control your copies of) all the hardware and software needed to keep it running. If you don't, you can be put out of business at any time, with little or no warning.
Personally, I hope that /. keeps posting the occasional stories along this line. It's clear that a lot of people don't understand it. Reminding people of such pitfalls is a public service, and it's useful to have such stories publicised when they happen. (And maybe this will get a few more people involved with openstreetmap. They could use a few more features. ;-)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Not it isn't, not under contract law. The legal letter's claim is dubious, and the contract must be clear and well-understood by both parties: what they cite, as they've cited it, might actually be interpreted to mean "cannot use the openly-offered/advertised/marketed/bloggged/prodcast-for-use map API for...anything at all despite those efforts." Did you miss the part about estoppel?
Contracts 101 tends to go over that where someone willingly deviates from a contract (literally and not just in your for-my-convenience re-interpretation later), you know about it (I know for a fact Google does at all levels and in many of their departments but that's a side-issue), and you do nothing, then you have a revision: even if unwritten.
That's not a novelty either: it's a point of common law that was set-up to defeat bad faith and disruptions by one party becoming stronger than other, deceptive contract practices, and abuses through contract.
Sane companies are not built to be eternal, and certainly are not built to be immediately and eternally stable. Anyone who discards solutions because they are not infinitely viable is a fool.
The most effective company strategy has been "the startup": create a product which works *now*, if only as a proof-of-concept. Attract investors who will allow that proof-of-concept to become a longer-term solution. Die fast. Repeated effort is not wasted effort, as you literally cannot predict which differences from iteration-to-iteration will be the thing which makes your endeavor work better than the last one (vs which differences are unimportant "details").
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Hi everyone, Google Product Manager for Maps APIs here. We are not revoking Routebuilder’s access to the Maps API. Unfortunately, we mistakenly sent a letter to Routebuilder saying that they were in violation of the Google Maps API terms of service. This was an error. Once the developer contacted us about this issue, we replied apologizing for the misunderstanding and confirming that we would not be revoking his access to the Maps API. (He contacted us on Friday, we replied on Monday, the blog post was published on the weekend.)
We’re really glad he let us know so we could fix the issue and we encourage any developers that have issues in future to reach out to us so we can help. Developers who want to contact the Google Maps APIs team: Stack Overflow and our issue tracker forum (https://code.google.com/p/gmaps-api-issues/) are both monitored by the Google Maps team weekly.