[aprssig] MapQuest Maps for Findu.com

[Steve Dimse]

On Apr 17, 2005, at 1:34 AM, ke4nyv at hamhud.net wrote:

> The way I read that, we should have 100% free access to these maps for
> street-level detail.

Read the terms of use. You can _link_ to them, not grab their maps and 
manipulate them. The result is the same as the MSN map and Google map 
links you will find on the left set of links on the find.cgi page. 
There are many mapping services that allow this, it simply draws you to 
their site and they make money from the ads.

What findU needs are sites that allow you to grab the map itself, 
manipulate it, and retransmit it, or as MapBlast did, allow deep 
linking to just the map, allowing them to be embedded in pages. The 
only commercial internet mapping site I know of without terms 
preventing this is Google. They use complex javascript  code to access 
their maps, but there are a couple groups making progress at hacking 
the access method. You can follow their progress at SourceForge. The 
trouble here is this is a beta from Google, those sometimes last 
indefinitely, but more often they are turned into a commercial product, 
at that time it is likely they would post the same restrictive terms of 
service everyone else uses.

Steve K4HG