Using Google maps API with CloudMade maps - google-maps

I'm developing an iPhone app that uses a map and show direction between two points on the map, the problem is i cant use the Google maps because it does not support street naming in my country, so instead I'm using CloudMade maps.
The question is can i still query Google servers with direction requests and use the results on the CloudMade map? Is the Google license allows it?

According to Google's terms of service you cannot place any content obtained from Google's service on any other map without written permission from Google.
10.1.1
(g) No Use of Content without a Google Map. You must not use or
display the Content without a corresponding Google map, unless you are
explicitly permitted to do so in the Maps APIs Documentation, or
through written permission from Google. For example, you must not use
geocodes obtained through the Service except in conjunction with a
Google map, but you may display Street View imagery without a
corresponding Google map because the Maps APIs Documentation
explicitly permits you to do so.
I would contact Google, they may be able to work with you in your situation.
Update:
Google contact information is a bit sparse for free maps.
Here is a link to the permissions tool:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/permissions/geoguidelines.html
This is a link to Google Enterprise support:
http://www.google.com/support/enterprise/bin/answer.py?answer=142244#maps
Or you may want to try and contact a Google office in your country if one exists. I do not believe their legal department has a direct contact information for the public.
http://www.google.com/intl/en/about/corporate/company/address.html
An here is the Google premier sales contact information. I don't think you would need to obtain a premier license (they are expensive) with the information you provided about your app but the sales representative may be able to point you in the right direction.
http://www.google.com/support/enterprise/bin/request.py?contact_type=gme&utm_campaign=en-codepremier

Related

Searching for service area businesses using Google API

I'm trying to understand a problem that I'm having at the moment,
I created a Google map on my web app so my users can search for their businesses,
It appears that they can search and find only businesses with a precise location,
Service area businesses cannot be found using my map,
This is the link to my map on my server: My Map
Then I found a Google link that I can find also the service area businesses,
This is the link to the Google Map: Google Map
I compared (vimdiff) the source codes of the two links and they are the same,
So my question is why I can't see service area businesses on my map ?
Service Area Businesses are not available for Places API users and this is Google's decision. There was a feature request to enable SABs in Places API, but unfortunately Google rejected it.
You can read more here: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/35828187
I copy the last answer from Google:
The Places API team has reviewed this feature request and decided against including Service Area Businesses results in API responses.
Places API mission is to enable developers to help users find relevant places to visit. Since Service Area Businesses are not places users can visit, and therefore do not belong in the Places API.
The ability to find Service Area Businesses have been removed from https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/examples/places-placeid-finder to be consistent with the funtionality generally available in the Places API. Google My Business users can still find Place IDs for their Service Area Businesses using a dedicated PlaceID Lookup Tool at https://developers.google.com/my-business/content/faq#associate_locations_using_placeid_1
We do acknowledge there is demand for this feature and will look into accommodating it in the future. To this end, we would appreciate if you shared specific use cases and business needs that this feature would enable for you.
Referring to the Google My Business find place ID page, they use their own Cloud project where this feature is available, but no way for Google Maps API users to get this.
I hope my answer clarifies your doubt!

Better result in Google map using beacons in Indoor search

Would it be possible make Google maps aware of our beacons via their registry or api or something, so that google map can accurately give indoor direction to users in a facility that is under our control(where we can deploy beacons)?
Example: In a mall we own, can we place beacons and submit them to Google Maps so it can give better results?
Some links I found, but can't figure out an answer:
https://developers.google.com/beacons/
https://developers.google.com/beacons/proximity/guides
https://www.google.co.in/maps/about/partners/indoormaps/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.insight.surveyor
Google used to develop this beacon-based location service call Google Here but it was scrapped due to the reasons of privacy, but then you can do the following to get your beacons locationing up.
Let say you have multiple beacons in one mall.To make this explanation simple, just treat the indoor maps and normal maps as the same thing, and those beacons you going to add are like the places in the Google Maps.
First of all you need to make your building floor plan available on the Google Maps. You can do so by using the following steps to submit your beacons location with the floor maps of the building, so that your beacons location can be automatically align with your stores/building.
https://support.google.com/maps/answer/2803784?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en
After your floor plans appear on Google Maps, you can submit your beacons location using the Map Marker tool (Retired March 2017, moved to Google Maps after that).
You can then use the Google Maps API's Map Object to work with your indoor map, including getting location of all your beacons.
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/android-api/map#indoor_maps
The IndoorBuilding Object allows you to get the active level that you are accessing. You can use the function getLevels() to get all the levels in the building, and then use getActiveLevelIndex() to get active level you are working on.
After getting to the right floor, what is left is the interaction between Google Beacon API with the maps you created.
latLng and indoorLevel in the Proximity Beacon API would then return the exact location and detail level that your beacons located.
You can use this link to upload indoor map of a building.
https://maps.google.com/floorplans/find
Submit the details of floor and everything.
Hope it will help.
I believe there are no current plans to use registered beacons for directions indoors, or even for lat/long type location (more for semantic place inference), but I feel it is a very good FR so I went ahead and added it to the Android issue tracker:
Including support for BLE beacons in FusedLocationProvider.
Please star it to get updates.
As you can read in the other reply beacons can be used currently to improve indoor location accuracy for 3rd party apps, but it requires a lot of work by the developer and it is not supported by the Google Maps Mobile.

List businesses - Google Maps APIs Terms of Service

The website I am working on should keep a list of many businesses located at different cities. I add those business manually into my database, and later need to display them with Google Maps using markers (so the main purpose of the map is to display a list of businesses). The map is public and no fees are charged. I am not retrieving businesses' information from Google. What I do not understand is whether I am allowed to use Google Maps to display a list of businesses or not.
I can not quite understand this point of their ToS
10.2 (b) No Business, Residential, or Telephone Listings Services. You must not display business listings Content in any Maps API Implementation that has the primary purpose of making available business, residential address, or telephone directory listings.
Does this basically say that I can implement a service to list businesses, but I cannot query Google to obtain information about other businesses and add them to my own list?
Thank you
Firstly I am not a lawyer but I have taken a good look at the Google Maps licensing and I would read it the opposite way that you have read it. I think that displaying business listings on a Google map violates their ToS.
10.2 Restrictions on the Types of Applications that You are Permitted to Build with the Maps API(s). Except as explicitly permitted in Section 8 (Licenses from Google to You) or the Maps APIs Documentation, you must not (nor may you permit anyone else to) do any of the following:
....
(b) No Business, Residential, or Telephone Listings Services. You must
not display business listings Content in any Maps API Implementation
that has the primary purpose of making available business, residential
address, or telephone directory listings.
It seems to me the criteria that is being evaluated is the type of service you are offering and if the type of offering is a business listing service (which it sounds like you service is) then you are not allowed to use the Google map API. This makes sense as it would be hard to differentiate that sort of business listing from the service that Google provide.
However, there are a number of free options you could use to put markers on maps that you should look at which avoid this issue. These include:
OpenLayers
GeoExt
PolyMaps
Leaflet
As you have created your own database I suggest you to create a web service of it and then use that data to display it on map.
Refer this link..This one is the best for your question. It explain each every steps from DB to Google Maps.
https://developers.google.com/maps/articles/phpsqlsearch_v3
Another thing which you can do is that you can upload the bulk data on Google's Places and then you can use Google's Places API to fetch the data. But one thing which you i would like to point is that if you use Places API then it will provide you maximum 20 results. Refer this links.
Bulk data upload
Hope this will help you....

Wanted to use Google Map API in desktop client

I want to use th Google Map API for my desktop tool.As I dont want to show any Map control in the UI I just want to give some address to API and the google should return me the city,country,zip etc.
Please tell me how I can achieve this.
You can't use the Google Maps API in a situation where you're not going to display a map. From the documentation:
Note: the Geocoding API may only be used in conjunction with a Google map; geocoding results without displaying them on a map is prohibited. For complete details on allowed usage, consult the Maps API Terms of Service License Restrictions.
I suspect you'll need to look for other commercial solutions for your situation.
Note that although I work for Google, this post is not made on behalf of Google - it's just based on the public documentation.

Google Places API vs AJAX Search API and Local Search Control

I've started developing a small app which main goal is to draw a map using Google Maps API (v3), and to show business in the area drawn (bars, restaurants and so on).
I found the Google Places API that was supposed to be released this month but it hasn't been. As far as I know the point of that API is to offer results from the Google's database of business, so later we could put those business in the map.
However now I've found this sample which is using the AJAX Search API and Local Search Control for Google Maps to do the same thing.
So the question is, what is the point of the new Google Places API?
Thank you in advance!
The Places API returns a list of locations near a specific lat/lng, while the Local Search API allows for an arbitrary search of Google's database of business listings and other POIs.