Against Google Maps' Terms to store data longer than 30 days
Opened this issue · 2 comments
If I'm reading https://developers.google.com/maps/terms#10-license-restrictions correctly, we should not store the latitude/longitude coordinates longer than 30 days: http://cl.ly/3Q3n1l113x0m
and we should display these things: http://cl.ly/2R3J3r3a2B2Z
and display the text "powered by Google" somewhere: http://cl.ly/2S000B3M092m
You’ve raised three points here. Whether latitude and longitude values constitute as Google's “Content”, the display of terms/privacy notices and finally, the correct display of attribution.
Once a user has pinpointed a location, this plugin does indeed allow the user to save latitude and longitude values. Are latitude and longitude values considered Google's “Content”?
"Content" means any content provided through the Service (whether created by Google or its third-party licensors), including map and terrain data, imagery, traffic data, and places data (including business listings).
The definition is broad and would suggest anything returned from the API is covered. A quick Google search reveals a few people discussing this with no concrete answers. One such post mentions:
You are allowed to cache indefinitely if it's related to a user preference. For example, storing lat/long information is okay if you're saving a user's home coordinates, but only the actual preference data and not any results generated by the API that are related to the personal data.
However, there is no source for this information and I can’t see any reference to such in the terms.
My interpretation is that their intention is to prevent applications from storing data to avoid rate limits as well as protecting the value in their places database.
In my eyes, there is a difference between saving a copy of Google's content and a user storing latitude and longitude values. There is an open pull request (#42) which would possibly fall into a grey area where we would be storing more than a latitude and longitude.
Any input on this would be useful.
The terms of use is interesting and I agree this is something which should be addressed, perhaps with a notice in the README as well as within the plugin description.
In terms of providing the correct attribution. Within the map display, no effort has been made to obscure any Google overlay (Google logo/terms link/copyright notice). The search box makes use of the Places API and when search results are displayed, you’ll notice the out of the box “powered by Google” notice.
JFYI The 30 days cache clause was removed on the most recent terms. Looks like the only thing we're allowed to cache (indefinitely) is the place id and nothing else.