Many people would like to know. One interesting feature though is the fact that accuracy seems to take a backseat to quantity. "Early last year, Google's United States market share for where-type queries topped 70 percent, and Google started to get serious about recouping the fortune it has been sinking into making its map, putting a tollbooth in front of its application programming interface. Henceforth, heavy users would be charged for the privilege. (The very biggest users - which Google wouldn't identify - were already paying.) The use limit was carefully calibrated: it would start at 25,000 map-related requests a day for 90 consecutive days. More than 99 percent of the users of the A.P.I. - small, boutique sites like HousingMaps.com - would be under the limit and thus unaffected. Even so, that left approximately 3,500 sites, companies that actually have a real business dependent on Google's maps, which would have to pay. The change prompted an exodus. Foursquare, an urban-exploration app used by 6 percent of smartphone users worldwide, was one of the first big players to leave last winter. Additional high-profile defections followed in the spring: Wikipedia left on what could probably be described as ideological grounds; it simply doesn't like the idea of proprietary data. Craigslist wanted more control. Apple defected in the summer. Its motive was strategic, even paranoid. The arrival of the tollbooth made it clear that Google saw Maps as a crucial part of an operating system for mobile devices. Could this lead to its having too much power over the iPhone<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/iphone/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> itself? Those four companies all turned to the same alternative: OpenStreetMap, a nonprofit based in Britain often described as the Wikipedia of mapping. Founded 10 years ago by Steve Coast, a cartography-obsessed computer-science student at University College London who liked to bicycle around town with a GPS taped to his handlebars and a laptop recording its data in his backpack, O.S.M. has since grown into a collaboration among some 300,000 map enthusiasts around the world. The resulting map is one that anyone can contribute to and use, free of charge. But it wasn't until Google Maps started locking down its data that O.S.M. became what it is now - a potential challenger to Google's cartographic hegemony. " This is a very interesting article about Google_Maps: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/magazine/googles-plan-for-global-domination-dont-ask-why-ask-where.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2 "Then in the summer, Google released a new Maps interface, code-named Tactile. The redesign, which Google officially refers to as "the new Google Maps," is currently accessible in preview mode (and is expected to replace and take the name of Google Maps sometime in the next couple of months). Zoom in on more than a hundred cities around the world and see not simply a photograph of the rooftops, but also the buildings themselves rendered in 3-D and viewable from any angle. Zoom even lower, switch to Street View and you can enter public buildings." Joseph Young Executive Director Maine GeoLibrary SHS 145 51 Commerce Drive Augusta, Maine 04333- 207-624-2664 [MaineGeoLibrary_Web_banner_JY] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list Maine GeoNews (GEOLIBRARY-L) is an unmoderated discussion list for all Maine GIS Users. If you no longer wish to receive e-mail from this list, you can remove your name and email address yourself at the this web address: http://lists.maine.edu/cgi/wa?SUBED1=geolibrary-l&A=1 Or,you may also request that your name be removed by sending email to: [log in to unmask]