> -----Original Message----- > From: Dan Putler [mailto:dan.put...@sauder.ubc.ca] > Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2010 6:46 PM > To: hadley wickham > Cc: Tomislav Hengl; r-sig-geo@stat.math.ethz.ch > Subject: Re: [R-sig-Geo] Geocode for Bogota > > I'm afraid Hadley is correct. Section 10.12 of Google Maps/Google Earth > APIs Terms of Service states: > > 10.12 use or display the Content without a corresponding Google map, > unless you are explicitly permitted to do so in the Maps APIs > Documentation, the Street View API Documentation, or through written > permission from Google (for example, you must not use geocodes obtained > through the Service except in conjunction with a Google map, but the > Street View API Documentation explicitly permits you to display Street > View imagery without a corresponding Google map);
Thank you for pointing us to the Terms of service (which is obviously very important). I still think that the situation with Google Maps API is not as bad (the speed and quality at which Google is building a digital data is impressive). In my case (http://spatial-analyst.net/wiki/index.php?title=Mapping_research_hot-spots) I use Google Maps API only to grab the coordinates of points and run analysis. I attach my own variables to the points and distribute only the end result of analysis (e.g. http://spatial-analyst.net/wiki/index.php?title=Image:Fig_geostatworld.jpg). Would this then also be against their terms of service? I do not think so - I use the work somebody did to geocode things, but distribute only end results of my analysis (my own content). I guess it is a sort of trick to go around this problem (e.g. to still use their service and not break any Terms of service). But you are absolutely right: we should focus our efforts on building/promoting open access data portals such as Open Street Map. T. Hengl http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/t.hengl/ > > The full terms of service are available from > http://code.google.com/apis/maps/terms.html > > Yahoo! Maps API Terms of Use: > http://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/maps/mapsapi/mapsapi-2141.html > has similar language in sections 1(f)(vii) and 1(f)(viii). > > I think very highly of Open Street Map, but the ability to actually use > OSM data to accurately geocode locations is only going to be possible in > a very limited number of areas (Karlsruhe, Germany perhaps?) since OSM > mappers have appropriately tagged an extremely tiny fraction of the map. > > The legal answer to Juan Tomás Sayago original post is to either obtain > a public road network file with address range information (which may be > available from a local or national government agency, very possible in > Canada, the US, and recently the UK, but I have no idea about Bogota or > Columbia) and use this data in conjunction with the PAGC geocoder > engine: http://www.pagcgeo.org to create a shapefile set that can then > be read into R. Alternatively, he could purchase a commercial > application and a commercial road network layer, or pay a supplier to > geocode his address list. > > Dan > > On Thu, 2010-03-11 at 07:57 -0800, hadley wickham wrote: > > > They limit, however, the number of geocode requests to 15,000 in a 24 hour > period. If the url connection breaks, then it might be a good idea to run the > same loop one more time and set add a while command to look for the missing > coordinates. > > > > It's also against the terms of service to use it in this way (to save > > on your local computer and as input to further analyses). > > > > Hadley > > > -- > Dan Putler > Sauder School of Business > University of British Columbia _______________________________________________ R-sig-Geo mailing list R-sig-Geo@stat.math.ethz.ch https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-geo