When I try to use the Google interface for the Image Server, I keep getting a

"Can't connect to server" error.

Has Google changed something on their end? Is there something we can do on our end to fix it?

I'd noticed this too. I'm no longer to connect to Google Image Server.

Hello

I can connect with no problems using the option "Google maps satellite image 2v"

I can get the image server to load up fine, but not the street maps.

Google Street map connection is off for almost 2 weeks now on my side.

IMS Templates and related services: Dynamic Maps IMS Template #8.3 now available

From the Linked Images from Google topic: Manifold users who have experience with Google ISI connections have complained that Google has an undocumented "throttle" of some sorts that limits access to Google servers if people actively use the connection. Microsoft Virtual Earth has no such throttle and encourages use. As appears to be reported in this thread and in comments by users elsewhere, it seems that Google takes active technical measures to selectively kill the ability of some users to connect to different public Google web resources. I heard this happens only if you are not using a Google-brand browser like GE. My guess (and this is only a guess) is that is why some users can connect to Google satellite images but not street maps while others can connect to maps but not images while others can connect to both and others to none. It just depends on what you've been using, how active you've been and what Darth Google decides to do to you as a result.

There are two things that can be done to fix this problem:

a) Legal action (OK... let's all stop laughing... ) It seems to me that given the firestorm of criticism of Microsoft over any Microsoft efforts to encourage use of Microsoft browsers there would substantial legal challenges to Google using underhanded means to force use of Google branded browsers. But unless you have the financial ability to spend tens of millions of dollars on legal fees or unless you have the political connections in places like the European union to have proxies do your legal work for you it is highly unlikely you will get anywhere with this. Google has expertly invested in all the right politicians to get a "roof" over them (a "roof" being Russian mafia parlance for what at Intel we called "air cover" - that is, support from powerful people to assure no unwanted interference from political or legal authorities...).

b) Technical action. Image server modules for Google have all been open source stuff written by third parties. Obviously, if Google can come up with some way of determining whether a Google browser is being used or some other browser like IE or Firefox or Manifold (via an ISI module), it's clear that the open source project that created that ISI module for Google is not browser neutral. My own feeling is that it is a waste writing things to interact with Google (better to support Virtual Earth), but if that's your thing I suppose there is nothing to stop talented programmers from doing what they can to promote browser neutrality and to discourage evil, underhanded, anti-competitive maneuvers.

... or you may consider

c) partnering with Google. Google is a for-profit company who is trying to build services that are wanted and used, get compensated for the building of those services, and generate a profit to its shareholders. A traditional approach to acquiring the services of a private company is to contact them and ask them what their service costs. When you hear the price tag, you will be faced with another business decision. Either you pay the price and have a partner you can count on or you try to get creative and offer other partnership arrangements and terms. Or you may choose to go elsewhere.

Whatever you do, step back and ponder the evolution of these business practices. Google allowed unfettered access for awhile to gain market share. Once they achieved a level of awareness, they started charging for their services. Once they charge for their services, they enter into competition with their free services. They are in the business of eliminating their competition. And they've got the perfect rationale: in the interest of serving our business partners better ...

Microsoft is on the exact same path. Once they figure out how to more effectively turn VE into money, you'll start seeing the same things happen. Don't for a second think that Microsoft is under-staffed in their legal department or knows how to serve their business partners.

Whatever you do, read the terms of use for these services. If you find to the contrary, please let me know. Because I'd like to use their valuable services for free too.

And don't get taken in by this "Google-branded browsers equals under-handed means" bologna. Sure they're a little heavy-handed at times (www.busmonster.com), but they have the right ass any other business to propose terms of use on their services which we can accept or deny.

to propose terms of use on their services If you believe that, break out your checkbook. By reading this message you hereby owe me ten thousand dollars. Those are my terms of service and they are retroactive to the moment you clicked open this thread.

So, you see the notion that anyone can propose whatever terms of use they want for a public web site is nonsense. And you don't need such obvious counter-examples as the above to nail it down as nonsense. There are plenty of stupid things people write that have no legal effect in a public space.

You can't, for example, propose terms of service on your web site that deny access to people who have brown skin or who are not members of your favored religion. You can't commit treason or disclose classified information. You can't pass off stolen videos as your property. You can't have terms of service that are illegal, that attempt to steal other people's data or that attempt to privatize something that does not belong to you.

You can't also use terms of service to further illegal acts such as trying to unlawfully suppress competition. For example, if you could do anything you wanted you then you wouldn't have the European Union trying to fine Microsoft billions of dollars for advancing their browser.

It is Google's choice to provide *public* web sites and *public* web services. They do that because they want the benefit of using the public highways, as it were. They can't do that and at the same time attempt to convert public Internet access into their own private property.

If Google wants to have more restrictive terms of service within a *private* web site, I have no problem with that. They know how to do that but they don't do it because they want the benefit of unfettered *public* access.

The analogy is somewhat like someone who goes into a public square to yell advertising about their wares but then says "Oh, as part of the terms and conditions of listening to me no one who is my competitor can listen." Well, too bad, that doesn't work. If you decide to stand up and shout in a public square (because you want the benefits of being seen in public) you can't prevent other people from doing what they like in that public square as well, such as listening to you even if they are your competitors.

Or, as I've noted before, a closer analogy might be someone who displays images of artwork in a public square and then tries to prevent people from photographing those images. Too bad. If you want to keep them private you can't exhibit them in a public place where anyone can take whatever pictures he likes (ask the papparazzi how far famous people get when they try to block picture-taking in public places).

To continue the analogy, if Google wants to have some private session they would be free to rent a private hall and to allow only those people invited to attend to hear them. They could then exclude competitors or prevent people from taking pictures as a condition of entry. But then it is much harder to get lots of people to attend such private sessions so Google doesn't do that.

Note that even if Google rented some private hall, as it were, they still could not do illegal things. They could not exclude people based on their race, gender, religion or national origin, they could not use their private session to conspire to commit a crime and they could not use that private session in any one of the vast numbers of commercial crimes, such as restraint of trade or unfair and deceptive practises, disallowed by law.

By reading this message you hereby owe me ten thousand dollars I deny your terms of use. That said and to prove your point I'm going to blatantly continue using your services ;}

I think you're confusing the public web site content and the web services. I mostly agree with your assessment of fair use with web site content -- the stuff thats generally available when you browse to a site. This is stuff that people can use any web browser to get to and it is, with notable ironic exceptions as Nick noted, in the public domain and generally, fair game.

But when it comes to the services that support that site I think your arguments hit shakier ground. To access these services requires a lot more conscious effort and technical expertise to access. Those implementation barriers have such a strong culture of services-for-pay around them and rights management that they shatter the whole fair use idea in the services tier.

By your reasoning, any web service that supports a public web site is open for public use if it doesn't have a security layer on it.

Lets go back to analogies. My bicycle is a service. I like using my service. But its simply sitting there a lot of the time (mostly because I'm spending too much time on this forum and not enough time exercising!). So I decide to let other people use it. I put it in the front yard and attach a note saying please don't use it excessively and return it by night-fall. As time goes on, people start using the bikes a lot. I decide to buy a bunch of bikes and find some customers who are willing to pay to make sure a bike is there when they need it. But I still leave some bikes available to the public. Granted, they're the dumpier bikes and a lot of time there's not enough. Now I find out that my neighbor Joe has been constantly leaving it at his place overnight. So I could stop the free service altogether or put a lock on the bikes. But instead I decide to yell at Joe and pay the neighbor kid $20 to watch the bikes. My neighbor Bob convinced me to have a lawyer send Joe a Nasty-0Gram to scare him a little.

Now by my reckoning Joe was in the wrong here.

But by your reckoning, my first infraction was attaching terms of use to my service when I attached the note to the bike. My second infraction was when I singled out Joe for not abiding to my terms. And further more, you're my neighbor Mildred who's going to blame the whole affair on me for not expecting the worst in people from the get-go.

Denis,

I bet your neighbours love you!

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to change the minds of men. - After Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Yes they do.

I mostly agree with your assessment of fair use with web site content -- the stuff thats generally available when you browse to a site. This is stuff that people can use any web browser to get to The key phrase is This is stuff that people can use any web browser to get to.

Use the Manifold toolbar and you can, indeed, "use any web browser" to get to it. Well, OK, for now it is IE but soon it will be IE and Firefox as well, which pretty much covers 95% of web browers.

The point is that web browsers are not just static, dumb things that can only show text. That's how they started, but very quickly web browsers were able to handle more and more content. Images are pretty simple content no matter how they are served, so it's no surprise that any browser can display image servers. You can't suggest that if someone wants to visit your site they must either use their browser or they have to use an obsolete browser that can't display the site.

Google knows this and what they are going for is a monopoly on the next generation of browsers that are more tightly integrated with search. Just like browsers started as static, dumb things that only showed text, that's exactly how search started. Now that search is moving into a visual geographic context Google wants to control not only the search engine server side but also your interface client side. They're not stupid. That means controlling the browser and they have set out to do that.

Because Google are not stupid they know better than to simply announce to the world that they are out to monopolize browsers and put a stake through the heart of Opera, Mosaic and IE. It's like saying you're going to out to have fun clubbing baby seals to death - tends to be politically incorrect. So Google gives their browser a different name to confuse the weak-minded and instead of saying they are out to monopolize browser clients in a vertically integrated monopoly with search says they are simply providing Google Earth, a "new type of application." By your reasoning, any web service that supports a public web site is open for public use if it doesn't have a security layer on it. Yes, you bet. Someone's administrative convenience is not a reason to give them property rights over a public setting. Your analogy is not right in that respect in that you said "front yard." Internet is more like a public square, indisputably not private property. A closer analogy would be someone setting up a big stock ticker display in the middle of a public square who says that no one can look in his direction and use the information without paying his broker representative standing adjacent to that display to explain it to them. Can't do that, as people walking freely in the public square have a perfect right to look wherever they like.

To take that analogy a bit further, suppose that guy relies upon most people not knowing what stock ticker abbreviations mean. Suppose some enterprising fellow whose apartment overlooks that square wants free stock quotes, but he doesn't know what the ticker abbreviations mean. He would be perfectly free to aim a video camera at the display, write text recognition code that grabs the ticker symbols and displays them on the laptop as full names, so that he can see INTC means Intel Corporation, or whatever. Perfectly fair. If the ticker guy doesn't like that he shouldn't set up his service in the public square.

[edit] Come to think of it, modern Internet, web 2.0, depends to an increasing degree upon people doing the Internet equivalent of just that, grabbing and massaging and repipelining data fed to the public in a vast number of different ways. Whether it is "mashups" or RSS or any one of a zillion new technologies for working with the data flow in manageable ways, that's where the web is at.

Google purports to love this, but that's only PR fluffery to confuse the weak minded. They only love it to the extent they can control it and gain de facto ownership. Why is YouTube valuable? Because it is a repository of a vast amount of pirated content. Why is Google search of books valuable? Because it repipelines other people's content. Why are Google image searches valuable? Because they repipeline other people's images. Think piracy doesn't pay? People have made hundreds of millions of dollars stamping out pirated CDs with Microsoft and other products on them. It pays big time, as Google knows, having built a business around trying to control access to other people's content.

In fact, the most amusing thing about the Viacom lawsuit against Google is that it could be it will be Google's own legal tactics that will hang Google. All you need do is quote Google's own words against them, those words that they used to "take down" mash up sites connecting to Google Earth, and they are dead in the YouTube litigation.

This is getting ridiculous. Cheers Dimitri.

Sorry you don't want to talk about it anymore. In the future, don't use soundbites like And don't get taken in by this "Google-branded browsers equals under-handed means" bologna. unless you are ready to show some logic behind that sound bite.

This is deadly important for everyone in GIS, because GIS is very much a creature of the public square. The biggest risk to GIS is jerks who privatize the immense public expenditure for public data sets. If anyone thinks that is funny, ask our long-suffering colleagues who are stuck in nation-state monopoly locations outside the US. They look at the immensity of public data in the US that is freely available and grind their teeth. More data means more GIS, a better GIS life for GIS users.

And what is coming is the extension of geographic context not just within the landscape of our governmental processes but, quite possibly, as the visual context in which the Internet itself is phrased. Visual browsers in geographic context are one of the key technologies of Web 3.0, so it is highly relevant who controls them and whether or not special interests attempt to privatize public geographic information as a means of holding the reins to Web 3.0.

[Edit] Oh, and in the meantime, I and everyone else at manifold.net will do our level best to give everyone as much access to public data as we can. Years ago we fought the Census Bureau to get open access to data. We still fight to get VMAP1 out. We invented image server modules within GIS and we proved it is really a browser thing with the Manifold toolbar.

Image servers like Virtual Earth within Manifold are powering a revolution in GIS operations throughout the world, where people in many countries before Manifold simply could not get GIS layers with which to work at an affordable price.

Now, with Manifold and Virtual Earth those people can get images (georeferenced images!) for free, and can often use those images to very quickly create vector data sets for things like road networks. We have many customers who are doing that and it is a genuine revolution for them. For that we are very proud.

We are lucky we have Microsoft with Virtual Earth to oppose Google. I don't want to overplay this because in a contest between titans it is Microsoft's weight that counts and any small contribution we make is almost inconsequential by comparison. Almost. But just like even a small dog will often fight alongside a larger dog against a common enemy, in a contest between Microsoft pushing openness and Darth Google seeking to privatize the public space, we will side with Microsoft and do what we can to keep that public space open to all.

Dimitri wrote:

"Now, with Manifold and Virtual Earth those people can get images (georeferenced images!) for free, and can often use those images to very quickly create vector data sets for things like road networks. We have many customers who are doing that and it is a genuine revolution for them. For that we are very proud."

Dimitri,

You make some valid points, but there is one i think is very mistaken.

You say users of GIS can use Virtual Earth can get data for free. Visitors to Virtual Earth are granted no such thing. It grants public access to the data in order that the public may gawp at it only, gratis. I very much doubt for one moment Microsoft and that those who have licensed their data to Microsoft to display via Virtual Earth, would tolerate the use of this information (mainly imagery) for the creation of vector drawings. If this were the case Microsoft would probably have also given away Encarta and Streets and Trips for free and for use and redistribution without restriction. It has not.

So, what evidence do you have that a granting of such permission has been made by Microsoft and its data suppliers. Unless this exists anyone who does use such data in contravention of the terms and conditions of its licensing and its access over the internet, would be exposing themselves to very great legal risk. If what you are suggesting were true there would many out there making maps of the UK and other regions to avoid paying the exhorbitant date licencing costs of the established state monopolies that produce mapping and other GI products.

Moreover, it is a myth that there is such a thing as free geographic data. There is always some cost in time and treasure to the collection of such data, whether it is collected by oneself or, by national government paid for through taxation and then made available to the population. What there is, is some subsidised GI made available at no charge to the end user.

There is also another issue here so often overlooked about using information from the likes of Google Earth and Virtual Earth. This is its accuracy. No geographic information business, analyst or consultant of any repute would use it, because the positional accuracy of the information shown is unknown and may have been deliberately degraded to prevent it being too useful. If you are undertaking a project, accuracy and uncertainty is critical, otherwise some nasty surprises may occur. If I was contracting out a GI project i would not touch with a barge pole any business who i thought was taking shortcuts and not paying attention to accuracy. Equally if you use GI yourself, you make darn sure you know the origins of the GI you use, how it was produced and its accuracy, otherwise noone of any standing would go near you. In short ripping off GI from Google Earth or Virtual Earth is about as safe with respect to accuracy as purchasing cheap pharmacuticals over the internet from a dealer in Lagos.

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to change the minds of men. - After Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A quite good anaology for what Google Earth and Virtual Earth allow for free, is a highstreet bookshop.

Bookshops usually encourage you to come in and browse the books for sale on the shelve. The bookseller will usually not object to you spending the entire day doing this if you wish and come back again another day and do the same again. The bookseller will however, understandably object if you come in with a digital camera or scanner and copy the contents of the books on the shelves as if the bookshop was a reference library. It is not hard to understand why the bookseller and the publishers of the books would object to this!

If you want to use the information within a book in a bookshop, you have to buy a copy of the book!

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to change the minds of men. - After Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I disagree this is an accurate analogy because it assumes away the placement into a public forum of the information, which is the determinative factor. Books in a bookshop are in a private setting. Further, books have an intrinsic "throttle" to them that is like a limited access method one might employ in a web setting.

The technology and setting of public web sites and public web services is very different: it is information made totally open, instantaneously and worldwide all at once. It is so open and so projective that it is not easy to construct analogies from traditional, non-electronic technologies that capture the overwhelmingly public nature of such electronic settings. And that public setting is not just the technology of the matter (as, for example, the highly open nature of radio transmissions that go worldwide) but also the cultural context of the Internet where a key aspect of how Internet became what it is has been the open, public forum nature of the medium (at least, for unsecured web sites).

This latter "open culture" aspect of Internet is a key distinction over much that has come before. Perhaps the best example is in contrast with radio / TV transmissions, which from a technology perspective are indeed public but nonetheless from the very beginning have been highly regulated by governments in all sorts of minutia that make it clear neither government nor society considers radio transmission a "public square." I believe this has arisen mostly because of the limited nature of transmission bandwidth: only one party can transmit on a given band at a time. That's a big difference from Internet, where you can have an effectively infinite number of web sites sharing the same public forum.

Another important thing to capture in any analogy is not only the highly public nature of the setting, but also the identification of who is cheating intellectual property owners. That intellectual property is involved can confuse you if you don't take care to pay close attention to the chain of responsibility and to identify correctly where that chain has been broken.

A better example would be someone who puts up a screen in a public square and then voluntarily shows a new movie for all to see. That person cannot prevent someone from taking pictures of that movie and then showing his or her friends those pictures. Movie pictures so displayed in a public square have entered the public domain.

One might say, well, the movie is copyrighted and the people who wrote, financed, produced, directed, acted in, distributed and marketed that movie have intellectual property rights in that movie. Very true, and those rights are controlled by the contracts such intellectual property owners have formed with the people whom they trust with their movie prints. They are not supposed to project the film in settings where they cannot assure that the intellectual property rights of the owners are preserved. If you review a modern contract between a theater and a movie distribution company, you'll see all sorts of terms compelling the theater to take anti-piracy measures.

If someone violates their contract with a movie distribution company by showing a film in a public square, the remedy for the intellectual property owners is action against the person violating the contract. It is not against pedestrians who happen to be walking past the square.

In Google's case if it is true that the images Google's public web servers offer up to the public for free use have some third intellectual property ownership (and it is not clear as a matter of law that such pictures are not already in the public domain) then if that third party does not want those images put into the public domain they should take action against Google to prevent Google from putting them into the public domain.

Here we can introduce two examples of people facilitating the theft of third party intellectual property, where in both cases it is Google doing the stealing. In the first case, your analogy of scanning books is apt because Google is doing exactly that. Some libraries have made copyrighted books available to Google for scanning. Such libraries have joined in a conspiracy with Google to in a wholesale manner steal the intellectual property of third parties.

The second example is YouTube, where intellectual property piracy is occurring on a massive scale as people illegally take licensed material (DVDs, TV programs, etc.) , pirate it, and then serve it up for Google's financial benefit.

It is interesting to note that Google argues out of both sides of its mouth at once. In the case of YouTube, they are saying that anything recorded from "on the air" transmissions of TV programs is fair game for reproduction so long as the entire content is not reshown. It is as if they are saying you could indeed take images from Google Earth so long as you don't download the entire data set and try to resell the entire data set.

But that, of course, is exactly opposite of what they argue in their Google Earth settings, that no material can even be "quoted," no matter how small.

Note also that the YouTube thing is even shakier ground for Google, where it appears that the great mass of material has come not from "on the air" recording of broadcasts but instead from DVDs and cable access, both of which have no sense of freedom as do broadcasts but both of which involve specific, tangible contracts that regulate access and use of the licensed material.

I disagree...

When users of Google Earth or Virtual Earth visit these websites they are making a conscious decision to do so. They do not, to use you analogy, happen upon a movie being shown in public. I also dont accept the parallel of these inadvertant viewers taking pictures of the screen whilst the movie is playing, are analogous to creating a mashup using GE or VE. Just because the IT exists that allows the creation of such mashups, does not grant one permission to do it.

Another reason Dimitri, why i think what your public square analogy is mistaken, is because there is no "public place" on the internet analogous to a public park or street in the real world. The internet in one sense is merely a collection of privately owned websites that you can access, you cannot go out side of these into public internet space where anything goes wrt to IP.

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to change the minds of men. - After Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

For all I know Dmitri, Nick and seatrails have legal training somewhere in their backgrounds too. Mine is disused, but I still have confidence in it, especially at the level of principle. And that puts me basically with Nick and seatrails. (I don't like Nick's bookshop analogy very much, but not on legal grounds.)

To correct a couple of Dmitri's points: A better example would be someone who puts up a screen in a public square and then voluntarily shows a new movie for all to see. That person cannot prevent someone from taking pictures of that movie and then showing his or her friends those pictures. Movie pictures so displayed in a public square have entered the public domain. Whether A can prevent B from showing the secondary pictures depends among other things on to whom, and whether for profit or not. To take the starkest example which involves no analogy at all: Say B figures out a way to relay data from Google Earth, only faster (by local caching). They might or might not add other data. Now let's say they charge for the service. Whose are the proceeds, as a matter of law? Probably Google's. Google can sue for (at least part of) the price charged by B; or it might prefer an injunction. Good chance in either case. (And this would not depend on whether Google's terms and conditions forbade on-sale or put other conditions on use.)

And that's the way it should be. It is similar for less stark examples, but of course less clear. If someone violates their contract with a movie distribution company by showing a film in a public square, the remedy for the intellectual property owners is action against the person violating the contract. It is not against pedestrians who happen to be walking past the square. Here a lot depends on whether C (the "pedestrian") has profited from seeing the film (shown by B, in breach of obligations to A). For example, as before, by providing the content to someone else for profit. If C has profited, and knew that B had obtained the movie in breach, then A has a good remedy against C as well as B. This sort of thing often arises where B and C have common owners or directors, but B is now miraculously bankrupt. Similarly, if C ought to have known, then it's probably the same (though harder to prove). Even if C had no idea, but has profited, there would sometimes be grounds for attributing C's profit back to A. In any of these cases, I think an injunction against future use by C would be pretty straightforward (unless, as is often the case, the injunction would do no good, i.e. because the work has become too widely distributed).

None of this is motivated on my part by any admiration for Google. ("Darth" is good, in my book.) I'd just like things to be straight. As I said in the earlier post below, it usually (and in the long run, always) comes down to ordinary fairness. Subject always to the over-riding necessity of keeping the wheels of capitalism well oiled. The law (in politically stable countries) is not as stupid as most people think.

Dimitri,

Good discussion here. I did throw up some logic to support my sound bites (so as to refute your sound bites!). That you rejected it as logic out of hand is your prerogative. I just can't compete on word-count with you. I don't mean it as a dig, Dimitri. Its just that when your responses run screens long it just wears me out.

I do see some of the value of your position pushing for openness. But to pretend that Microsoft is our ally 'pushing for openness' against 'Darth' Google just paints this as way too Black and White. I've seen nothing from Microsoft that warrants their hero status in this little tale of yours. I've seen nothing that indicates they're not taking a very similar path to Google.

Until you can point to some terms of use by Microsoft or Yahoo that says we can use their image services in an unfettered manner, you're doing a disservice to this community to imply that we can build business practices around using their services for free.

I agree, the public square is important for everyone, including those in GIS. I'll make you a deal. I'll stop with the bologna sound bites if you agree to be more concise. :)

Dennis

Boys! Don't make me come down there - I'll paint your back porches red!

:-)

Seriously though, there are some good points on all sides. Dimitri's point about public vs. private property is interesting. It is somewhat like a public square, but not really. The hardware and services to connect the hardware to the internet is all paid for by Google, so it happens on publicly accessable private property - much like Dennis's front yard.

Neither analogy is perfect but was perhaps subconciously chosen to promote (market) the point of view of the proponent.

Don't expect, suggest!

Now at AquaResource

"c) partnering with Google. Google is a for-profit company who is trying to build services that are wanted and used, get compensated for the building of those services, and generate a profit to its shareholders. "

Hmm. Those in TV and Movie industries and who write and publish books have a rather different opinion of Google, viewing it as rather explotative of the IP of others. For example Viacom is currently claiming damages of 1 Billion USD from Google for infringement of copyright on the video titles Viacom owns and portions of which were uploaded to Youtube without Google doing anything to deter it or little to remove the infringing material.

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to change the minds of men. - After Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

....or there is always d)

d) Think, do you need to take advantage of a virtual globe like Google Earth or MS VIrtual Earth - the key question being is your operation indeed global, or merely state or county wide? Equally do you need global Landsat coverage or high resolution remote sensing imagery of your state or county to show your sites users where their nearest sushi bars are located. Of course not, doh!

The suspicion i have is that many mashups that take advantage of GE or VE use them because of their swank value, when what is actually require is rather less. Then, they are in fact then using a sledgehammer to crack the proverbial nut.

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to change the minds of men. - After Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

This is a very interesting discussion.

Dmitri raises good arguments, as always. But they cut both ways.

Of course Google cannot by fiat impose unlawful terms and conditions on (potential) users of its services; in fact to be effective, any terms and conditions which are "onerous" must be cast in such a form and presented in such a way that they will actually be read and understood, by any reasonable user. A really annoying security layer might well be the only way to achieve that. A better approach is always to avoid imposing terms and conditions which are onerous, or which any casual user would find surprising.

But here's how the argument cuts the other way. The judgement about what terms and conditions attach to the use of a service is a legal one, made, when push comes to shove, but also in principle, by a court. Just as Google's word is not law, neither is "standing in a public square" the end of the matter. If Google has put work into its product, and others benefit from that work without paying Google, then Google has a prima facie argument for having the other party's financial benefit repaid to it (by a restitutionary claim for unjust enrichment, or by a constructive trust), and/or for an injunction against such continued use. As ever, the argument could be rebutted, either in the case of an express licence, or if it could be shown to be "notorious" that Google's business involves giving away the fruit of its labours for free. (If that were true, then a user who had come to rely on free access to make a living, with Google's tacit consent or acquiescence, might be able to make a good case for requiring Google to lift any throttling or barring of access.) The point is that the arguments on each side will always need to be made, and it can never be clear, taking one factor alone, what the correct answer is. As well as the public or private nature of the forum, content, prior dealings, equal treatment of users, and many other things are relevant, in addition of course to "free" pecuniary gain. Sometimes a court will get the wrong answer, in a way that can seriously mess up later claims and subsequent practice. But the best guide to what the law is is still what reasonable people would think was fair, bearing the whole context and history in mind.

This should be simple: Google pays for data to create GE & GM and nobody would deny them the right to make money on that. The open way to make money is to have access limited to those who pay their price. Google even appears to have this structure by offering pay-for-use products.

The problem is that they make a pretence of providing a "public square" service and then surreptitiously prevent access to those who they decide come to look too frequently. And much to my surprise they apply the same exclusion to their search product.

It would be more transparent if they published access rules like the allowable number of views per minute.

It is simple, and exactly as you say. It would be fairer if Google published quotas and rules, but so long as they treat all users alike*, they probably don't need to do that as a matter of law.

*Would they be entitled to treat differently private users and users they suspected of using Google Earth for profit? That's probably the real question.

I don't think this discussion was a turn off the freeway (as Art has put it). This is the place where the bitumen is still being laid. It doesn't solve any practical problems to discuss these issues, it's just really interesting. I bet that we'll see litigation on this issue, or on a closely related issue. Which is great for lawyers: not just for their pockets but also for their brains.

hello folks I addmit that I didn't read all the treadlines yet.. (sorry Dimitri) -so it might be mentioned already.. Just a KISS (keep it short and simple) from me: I have virtual earth street and overlayed with google sattelite image.. (whole Switzerland is now at lesat 1m resolution in google..)

it works fine!

As a new user would like to confirm that I'm finding the same problem as Eandetrin at the beginning of this post, before it shot off into a rather unhelpful discussion. I can access the Google satellite imagery but not the Street maps. I'd suggest the API needs attention; Google do tweak it now and again as they develop the service.

This is deep water for me, but I suspect it's an update to the API needed, as Google has updated the maps. From another board:

"Google has apparently updated the maps, so instead of v=w2.43 you now have to use v=w2.46 as in this example."

so, what should be done is the problem is the API version?

If peterstib is right, you should be able to click the "Custom URL" box and alter the URL to use "v=w2.46", without any changes to the image server module.

Altering the URL to use "v=w2.46" as Adam suggested fixed connection problems with both Google street maps and Google satellite views.

Thanks adamw for your confidence - not really my idea, just found elsewhere. However, the number now seems to have gone up to "v=w2.52" for the street maps. That works fine.

The number now seems to be 2.56

C# source for the dlls: link Google Street layer is loading with v=2.59 and satellite with v=3.9 - not sure if there is a difference from 2.56 to 2.59, but....

dll can be complied by Visual Studio 2005 and I would guess C# Express.

Attachments:
Manifold.ImageServer.Google.dll

These last numbers worked yesterday but not today... Any new configuration? I have been using Virtual Earth much more than Google, but I am now working in a location with a higher Google satellite definition. Thanks

http://kh.google.com/kh?v=3.9 is working fine for Google Satellite v2 for me.

You can change the v= number by using the Custom URL checkbox. You always need to click the refresh icon.

Is everyone able to access the image servers in general? Since installing the 8.0.1.2316 update I am getting a "No Manifold Image Servers installed" message. dlls are still there where they worked before.

Just tried it with 2316 and it works for me.

Thanks -- I re-downloaded the dlls and removed some add-ins I wasn't using and now it works

Google Street Layer is now at 2.61

v=w2.61 to be more precise

"A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five." -- Groucho Marx

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