Google Maps to Start Charging Businesses for Service

According to a report, Google is going to start charging for usage of their Google Maps service. Google will charge businesses that are “heavy users” of their service. If a business gets more than 25,000 map requests per day, then the business will have to start paying to allow their users to use Google Maps.

According to the BBC, there is a rumor out there about the fee. Apparently, Google will charge businesses $4 per 1000 “hits” or “views” of the Google Map of their location.

Google maintains that this new fee for Google Maps usage will only “affect 0.35% of users”. I am not sure if that actually means that it will affect only 0.35 percent of Google users, or whether or not it will affect 0.35% of users (meaning businesses that are listed in Google Maps).

Thor Mitchell, product manager of Google Maps API said, “We understand that the introduction of these limits may be concerning…with the continued growth in adoption of the Maps API, we need to secure its long-term future by ensuring that even when used by the highest-volume for-profit sites, the service remains viable.”

This new Google Maps fee is going to hit mostly the larger businesses, especially the Travel industry. I suspect that certain websites that are the heaviest users would be websites like TripAdvisor and Expedia.

The new fee will begin being charged starting January 1, 2012.

You can read more about the Google Maps usage fees here:
http://www.nma.co.uk/news/google-to-charge-for-maps-api-usage/3031432.article”>http://www.nma.co.uk/news/google-to-charge-for-maps-api-usage/3031432.article
http://dailyconvo.com/10277/google-to-charge-for-google-maps/”>http://dailyconvo.com/10277/google-to-charge-for-google-maps/