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Yeah and then someone would just export all of the data if they offered low level access. I can’t think of any reason google would take that risk for minimal AP

Yeah and then someone would just export all of the data if they offered low level access. I can’t think of any reason google would take that risk for minimal API fees.

londons_explore 3y ago
For most of the data, it's already possible to siphon it off. Just browse with a instrumented browser and you can download all the 3D map data for a city in a few minutes from a single session, simply emulating a user zooming around the city. Business data can likewise be methodologically downloaded, thousands of businesses per user account per day doesn't hit their rate limits. The polygons of roads and stuff are also easily extracted from a browser. And the Android/iOS mobile apps allow you to 'download for offline use', which is obfusticated but not properly encrypted. Charging $1 per 1000 records for API access would cost massive amounts for a competitor to download all the data - and besides, maps data is fairly easy to hide a few erroneous entries in and catch anyone using the data to start a clone of Google Maps.
- mtmail 3y ago
  > Business data can likewise be methodologically downloaded Google doesn't allow to store the data permanently. Just because it's technically possible doesn't make it legal. From the Google Places API terms "you must not pre-fetch, index, store, or cache any Content except under the limited conditions stated in the terms" "You can display Places API results on a Google Map, or without a map. If you want to display Places API results on a map, then these results must be displayed on a Google Map. It is prohibited to use Places API data on a map that is not a Google map."
  - londons_explore 3y ago
    I was thinking of users who just wanted to take all the data and ignore any T&C's. Since the Linkedin web-scraping case, T&C's on data on a public website effectively doesn't apply anyway.
    - dontupvoteme 3y ago
      They actually ended up losing that case, but they went to extreme lengths such as using proxies after getting banned and such. IIRC the important thing was that horrible CFAA law can't be brought into consideration because the supreme court shot that down.

Yeah and then someone would just export all of the data if they offered low level access. I can’t think of any reason google would take that risk for minimal API fees.

londons_explore 3y ago

For most of the data, it's already possible to siphon it off. Just browse with a instrumented browser and you can download all the 3D map data for a city in a few minutes from a single session, simply emulating a user zooming around the city. Business data can likewise be methodologically downloaded, thousands of businesses per user account per day doesn't hit their rate limits. The polygons of roads and stuff are also easily extracted from a browser. And the Android/iOS mobile apps allow you to 'download for offline use', which is obfusticated but not properly encrypted. Charging $1 per 1000 records for API access would cost massive amounts for a competitor to download all the data - and besides, maps data is fairly easy to hide a few erroneous entries in and catch anyone using the data to start a clone of Google Maps.

mtmail 3y ago
> Business data can likewise be methodologically downloaded Google doesn't allow to store the data permanently. Just because it's technically possible doesn't make it legal. From the Google Places API terms "you must not pre-fetch, index, store, or cache any Content except under the limited conditions stated in the terms" "You can display Places API results on a Google Map, or without a map. If you want to display Places API results on a map, then these results must be displayed on a Google Map. It is prohibited to use Places API data on a map that is not a Google map."
- londons_explore 3y ago
  I was thinking of users who just wanted to take all the data and ignore any T&C's. Since the Linkedin web-scraping case, T&C's on data on a public website effectively doesn't apply anyway.
  - dontupvoteme 3y ago
    They actually ended up losing that case, but they went to extreme lengths such as using proxies after getting banned and such. IIRC the important thing was that horrible CFAA law can't be brought into consideration because the supreme court shot that down.