What data is sent to Google Maps API - google-maps

I have searched for information on data and data security when using the Google Maps API, but I haven't been able to find anything that answers my specific question. We were looking to use Google Maps to to plot our customers and overlay some other information on top. I have all the customer details (name, address, postcode, Lat, Lon and other key details) in a file and have been using some test data. I have successfully been able to plot the test data on Google Maps and it looks like it is exactly what I would want to use.
The question I have is what data is sent to Google for the map to be rendered - does all of my data go external, or am I just pulling the maps back to the browser and rendering the data locally within the browser (ie. no data goes externally).
Thanks

Your additional data are never sent to Google servers. All the map is built in JS, so once you have loaded Gmap scripts, there is no need to sent data.
You can check that in your browser developer console : no additional AJAX request are made to Google, once the first one for displaying map is finished.
If you use geocoder or directions service (and maybe other services, but I have never use them), you have to send addresses or LatLng to Google via AJAX in order to make calculation.

Related

Generating a link to Google Maps from a directions API response

I currently have an application which takes a a start and end point from a user and sends a request to the google maps directions API, for example: https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/directions/xml?key=my_key8&origin=M460PU&destination=NN36NW&sensor=false&mode=driving&units=imperial&departure_time=1501752779
We then display the estimated journey time for a given route. The user has asked if it's possible for us to include a link directly to Google maps so that they can see the route on the maps and make sure it looks ok.
I've seen previous questions such as this one: Link to Google Maps but that seems to be a solution for a simple Google Maps search, where as in my case I want to see a route from the directions API.
I'm trying to figure out if I there's a way I can take the data from the Directions API response and plug that in to a http://maps.google.com/maps URL that the user can click on. Has anyone ever had any success doing this?
As mentioned #geocodezip you should use Google Maps JavaScript API or Google Static Maps API in order to show exactly the same route as the output of Directions API.
There is also an option to open Google Maps web site or native app using the Google Maps URLs. You can have a look at the documentation to figure out how to create the URL:
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/urls/guide#directions-action
The only issue is that the Google Maps URLs doesn't provide any parameter for departure time, so you will always get routes for "Leave now" that might have discrepancies comparing to a web service that was requested for a different departure time.
Based on your question I think the Google Maps URL might be
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&origin=M460PU&destination=NN36NW&travelmode=driving

Can I get old photos use Google streetview API?

Recently, Google map could go back in time Street View by "TimeMachine".
I couldn't find the way in the APIs.
Is their TimeMachine parameter for change the time?
Have I any other way if we don't have API to get the data of "TimeMachine"?
For example, enter a URL of Street View directly.
To my knowledge, this is not possible using the API.
This feature request from the official Google Maps API bug tracker covers exactly this funcitonality:
Issue 6718: Feature Request: Access to Street View images from different times
It it open since May 2014.

How do I get a direct link to a place on google maps with the Place Id

I have the Place Id of a place on google maps in my app. Is there a way to put the place Id in a URL and have it directly link to the page? Or does it have to be done through the URL?
I can't seem to find anything detailing this in the docs. I've tried below, but it just gets me the standard google maps page:
https://maps.google.com/maps?placeid=ChIJN1t_tDeuEmsRUsoyG83frY4
Recently, in May 2017, Google launched the new Google Maps URLs API. You can read about this API in the official documentation
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/urls/guide
So, from now on you can construct a URL for Google Maps using the place ID. In your particular case this URL will be
https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=Google&query_place_id=ChIJN1t_tDeuEmsRUsoyG83frY4
Hope this helps!
Not directly, using the placeID you can get a variety of information in JSON or XML format, among them there are also the lat lng of the place and its address with which you can easily locate the map
google developer doc
The URL for a specific Google Place is returned by the places details API endpoint.
If for example you query:
https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/details/json?placeid=ChIJV2BQ4laeekgRFauLvdXbFXE&key=YOUR_API_KEY
You will see that in the returned JSON there is a key 'url' which points to https://maps.google.com/?cid=8148660811851344661
The correct format, at this time, to produce a general link that goes directly to correct google place is: https://maps.google.com/?cid=[place_id]&t=[maptype]
The map type parameter "t" is apparently necessary. Without it, google maps seems to perform a more general search when the link opens that is sometimes successful and sometimes not. With it, maps opens to correct place each time whether it opens in browser or in app on mobile.
Set this parameter to "m" for a street map and "k" for a satellite map.
A lot of answers on SO show the following syntax which often pulls unwanted results if two locations of the same name are nearby e.g.:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Starbucks/#43.088554,-88.06579,17z/
If you are already using google places api, then you have the place_id, so i recommend using it to avoid ambiguity.

Google Distance Matrix API - Using the service without Google map

I wonder if anybody knows whether it is permitted to use a the distance matrix service in the code behind without displaying the google map on that specific web page. The google map will be displayed on another page on the same website, but does using the service elsewhere without the map violate the google terms and conditions?
According to the Google Maps API Web Services Documentation:
Use of the Distance Matrix API must relate to the display of information on a Google Map; for example, to determine origin-destination pairs that fall within a specific driving time from one another, before requesting and displaying those destinations on a map. Use of the service in an application that doesn't display a Google map is prohibited.
Looks to me like it's allowed so long as your application eventually displays that information on a Google Map, even if it's on another page.

Google Maps API Webservice usage in windows forms application

My requirement is this.I need to get the latitude and longitude for a given address using Google Maps API. I found in the Google Developers site the following web service which takes address as input and returns so much information of the given site which includes latitude and longitude also. I checked this by executing this URL in the browser.
Latitude and longitude information is coming under geometry/location section. I want to use this web service in windows based application and gets the latitude and longitude of different sites by passing different sites information to this web service each time in a loop.How can I do this?
Looks like you will have to either establish a static list of sites to iterate through them and modify the url accordingly or assemble the same url for the site that is requested by the user.
Also, you will need an XML parser:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/9d83k261.aspx