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."

Getting Google Takedowns with Google...

[Greg Wright]

Funny, you can still get to the python script that generates the wallpapers from the cached pages of http://gmerge.2ni.net/ [2ni.net] on Google itself:

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:lNdeCgLHUdwJ:le vinux.org/~2ni/gmerge/+google+maps+wallpaper&hl=en [66.102.7.104]

Get it while its still there! :)

That is friendly,

[MrByte420]

No...

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 .*AA any day.

Interesting wording

[jandrese]

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?

Tough call

[Nos.]

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.

Clearly Derivative

[Akoman]

OK, so it's pretty clear that the script is creating derivative works by stitching together the sat-maps. But how is Chicagocrime violating the terms?

The gMail invite spooler's been shut down, too

[obli]

Google's been shutting down the gMail invite spooler , too, but according to the creator and owner of the site (http://isnoop.net/gmail/ [isnoop.net]) his legal notification from the legal team was quite friendly, it's pretty cool that google isn't the kind of company that keeps rabid lawyers around to sue people. See thread on Somethingawful.com for more: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s= &threadid=1580408 [somethingawful.com]

I'm surprised Google let others leech like this

[Jugalator]

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.

Re:Interesting wording

[Anonymous Coward]

I would additionally wonder if the satellite views are subject to a different license (for Google) than the roadmaps.

I must admit that making large standalone images from the satellite views does, in fact, seem notably different than most of the other homebrew Googlemap sites out there, which may be why this particular site recieved this letter while the others didn't.

But who knows... maybe this is just the start.

Anyone else see a pattern?

[goldspider]

Google has website shut down, asserting their intelelctual property rights = reasonable

MPAA has website shut down, asserting their intellectual property rights = Gestapo

Re:Google Maps are awfully distorted anyway

[phoenix.bam!]

For reference, here are all the links.
Google [google.com]
Yahoo [yahoo.com]
MapQuest [mapquest.com]

The reason Google is distorted is because the satellite image matches with the road maps. The satellite isn't nearly as far north as it would need to be to properly take the images it has. It is closer to the horizon so it gives a distorted looking image. Google most likely distorts the maps on purpose.

Re:Tough call

[Em Adespoton]

As someone who has tried to get a number of permission deals from various industries, I'll let you know right now that RIAA and MPAA related companies tend to completely ignore you, even when you've emailed, faxed and sent snail mail (there's no way to get to a real person in charge of such things at the phone numbers I've tried).

Software publishers (I've never tried to contact a BSA publisher) and other independent media publishers are usually delighted to make a deal; often, even for free, or with a small percentage kickback if you're doing something for-profit.

I'm glad Google has decided to side with the independents instead of the corporate behemoths on their treatment of individuals in this case, and actually acknowledge that corporations share the world with individual human beings.

server side vs. client side...

[bagofcrap]

so hosting a site could be a problem, but how about something like greasemonkey [mozdev.org] on firefox to do it locally? would that get around the restriction?

Re:Google Maps are awfully distorted anyway

[Ixalon]

The reason they do this is to simplify the mapping of latitude and longitude to pixel coordinates. In reality 1 second east/west is a different distance on the ground depending on how far from the equator you are (e.g. 360 degrees is zero distance at the poles).

What they've done is picked a reasonable average for this distance over the area they cover (North America and the UK), then projected the map so this distance equals the same number of pixels over the whole map. This way they don't need to resort to trig functions in their Javascript.

Re:Nicest Shut down?

[complete loony]

On a related note, the gmail invite spooler [isnoop.net] has also been taken down recently.

Nah

[PCM2]

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 [yahoo.com] 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.

Re:Google Sightseeing?

[ip_fired]

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. ;)

Re:This is what I get:

[d34thm0nk3y]

I find it somewhat ironic that a company that makes a significant portion of it's revenue by deep-linking to sites is sending takedown notices to people who deep-link their site.

Yep, necessary

[Mr. Underbridge]

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.

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.

Re:Actually, yes

[anhdres]

The difference is that the RIAA strategy doesn't rely on stopping filesharing one by one, it relies on fear. Nobody would stop doing it until they receive the "please stop" letter. I'm sure that number is way bigger than the ammount of users the Fasttrack network lost in the US because of fear of being sued for thousands of dollars.

Re:Paging the fanboys...

[BobTheLawyer]

Google's argument would be that when you access Google Maps you are accepting their terms of use, which are incorporated by means of the link at the bottom of each page. This is probably correct, but their argument would be stronger if you had to view the terms and click on an "I accept these terms" button before you accessed the website.

If you use a third party client to connect to the AOL IM network, on the other hand, you're not seeing any of AOL's terms of use - so how can you be bound by them? As a legal matter, it's fairly clear that you're not. This is why AOL tries to block third party clients technically rather than legally.

Re:Yep, necessary

[Momoru]

This is very common...most companies do not come right out with lawsuits, I used a BMW logo on my site once and BMW sent a notice asking if I could remove it because it violated yadda yadda. I also knew of a bar that was using a Jimmy Buffet trademark, and got a similarly nice letter first. This is the way you are supposed to approach violations...warn the person first, friendly lawyer notice second, angry lawyer notice third, in court finally. Most companies realize you get more bees with honey, but when people continue to violate you can bet your ass that an angry lawyer letter will follow.