From what I understand (I have no insider info/hints or anything related), this sort of thing was precisely why Google radically changed the pricing structure t

From what I understand (I have no insider info/hints or anything related), this sort of thing was precisely why Google radically changed the pricing structure to make the free tier much smaller for Maps API recently. I.e. Google knew there was rampant abuse by people like this (this example is not the only thing like this I have heard of...) so Google fixed the glitch and in the process ruined it for all the people genuinely using the service's free tier. This is why we can't have nice things :) I guess we are lucky that Google didn't decide to just cut their losses and close the whole shebang down - that would be a shame as Google maps is really useful IMO.