"Navigate to Chinese food" I can imagine ways to make money from that. If 5 Chinese restaurants are all just about the same distance, and have relatively the

"Navigate to Chinese food" I can imagine ways to make money from that. If 5 Chinese restaurants are all just about the same distance, and have relatively the same ratings, then you can suggest the person goes to the one that happens to have paid Google $0.50 in advertising. Maybe they won't do this, maybe they will. But picture that you're a Chinese restaurant, and you know people use Google Maps to navigate to you - you'd want Google's data on your store to be up-to-date. Having up-to-date data from local businesses has to be very good for Google.