Google Changes Their Policy for Using Free Map API

Real Estate Technology: Google Maps Changes Terms of Use

Many broker and agent technology solutions use the free Google Maps API to display listing content on a Google Map.

In an announcement made on the Google Developers' blog, they announced changes to their policy for using the free map API.

First of all, API stands for Application Programming Interface. It allows software developers to put Google Maps into their product for free. In the beginning, there were no advertisements on the maps. Now, all of that is changing, and it has an impact on real estate technology products that integrate Google Maps with IDX.

Specifically, Google announced that advertising will now be delivered in the maps imagery. This causes two issues for real estate brokerage.

First, some MLSs do not allow advertising to be displayed in or around IDX data. Suddenly, your technology solutions may be in violation of the MLS rules and regulations. This change indicates that software suppliers have 90 days before the ads appear – or sometime around July 2011.

The second implication can be viewed in two ways. First, there is a possibility that your competitor will be advertising to your customer inside of the real estate software you purchased from your vendor. Clearly this may cause some interesting broker marketing challenges. Your vendor may need to switch to Google Maps API Premier (which they will need to pay for), or go with a professional mapping API like Bing Maps or MapQuest. The other side of this coin is that now you have an opportunity to market your brokerage on your competitors Google Maps Integration.

Lastly, Google also announced that they are contemplating putting a limit on the number of maps that can be displayed for free. This may also be a problem for broker solutions even if you are not concerned about the advertising.

In any case, there's no need to worry about this issue with AgentAchieve and other CoreLogic products. We anticipated this direction when we chose to use Bing Maps from Microsoft. These are the technology decisions you should be comfortable leaving to your provider of real estate marketing solutions.

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