For those who do not know, it's been widely reported in various GIS blogs, Google has changed the business use terms of the GE EULA, here's the spiel:

'Use of Software. For an individual end user, the Software is made available to and may be used by you only for your personal, non-commercial use according to these Terms of Service and the Software documentation. For a business entity user, the Software may be used by you and your employees for internal use according to these Terms of Service and the Software documentation (individual end users and business end users are collectively referred to as “You” herein).

Restrictions. You agree not to use the Software in connection with or in conjunction with a system in a vehicle that offers real-time route guidance or turn-by-turn maneuvers. You agree not to use the Software for any bulk printing or downloading of imagery, data or other content.'

I'm currently not allowed to install the free version of GE on my office computer, I therefore haven't done much KML generation/testing recently using Manifold. IMO we can now, with the new business use terms in place, use the free version of GE as a viewer of Manifold KML files without breaking Googles terms and the threat of being sued.

well the devil is in the detail IMO

for businesses "non-commercial use" pretty much excludes everything a business might want to use the imagery for. OK so you can plan the company's Christmas party or something, but not much else.

Bulk download of images rules out a lot too.

I interpret the "non-commercial use" as being specific to the individual user and nothing to do with business use.

I want to allow my co-workers, clients and third parties to view Manifold generated KML files in the free GE viewer, IMO that isn't breaking the terms of business use.

I should think that's perfectly in order. There is obviously going to be the ever present grey area between internal business use and commercial exploitation of Google's product (and it's relicensed data).

As a local government GIS person, I disagree with Nick. There's plenty we can use Google Earth for along the guise of 'internal business use'. We can use it as a backdrop to present our own (Manifold generated) data on. We can use it to look at air surveys that may differ from ours (in the same way that Microsofts Virtual Earth platform also has different air surveys to the ones we are currently licensed to use). We are also looking at the new 'flight simulator' functionality in 4.2 which will enable us to create smooth video flythroughs which again can contain our own data.

My interpretation of the EULA is that basically yo must take a common sense approach. Don't download all of the data on the site and resell it! Don't wrap Google's product up in your own product and resell it. Otherwise there is plenty you can be doing under the wraps of 'internal business use.'

Hi James,

Actually what i had in mind with regard to commercial use was for someone to use the imagery on GE to make their own maps and then commercialise this map product. I think this would be a no-no.

Personally, I would not use GE for anything, simply because I do not know anything about the data being displayed, when it was collected and how it was processed, its geopositional accuracy etc.

It's quite clear that using the imagery outside of Google Earth is a not an option, but I think there are a lot GE Pro users out there who think their $400 gives them carte blanche access to the imagery.

I don't agree with your point about using GE, if you got a KML from me you'd know that it was from a reliable source :)

"I don't agree with your point about using GE, if you got a KML from me you'd know that it was from a reliable source :)"

LOL it is not you I am so concerned about.

Geography and cartography are sciences. Knowing the uncertainty associated with the datasets you are working with in science is crucial. Geographic information is no different. Otherwise you risk making costly and perhaps tragic mistakes.

Google does not publish any information about the geopositional accuracy of the data it displays. So if you use GE imagery in your professional work because you do not know how postionally accurate it is, you cannot perform any kind of quality control on your work. To do use it is taking shortcuts and by taking them you put your self at risk of negligence claims. No reputable GIS contractor would consider taking such shortcuts.

In fact i have heard recently that GE imagery is not positionally very accurate in some parts of the developed world.

I wouldn't be using GE imagery as the basis of my KML, more likely I would export my points/lines/areas, which had used a variety of source data - GPS/orthoimagery/back of a cigarette packet - obviously the accuracy would vary widely depending on the source.

I often transfer coordinates from a set of topomaps that I trust to Google Earth maps, and invariably, they are shifted well to the east and slightly north (not sure of the exact distance, but obvious, and I would guess 100+ feet). When someone figures out why, and how to account for it, I'd be interested in hearing!

Trohrer,

This does not surprise me in th least. There may be several reasons for this, depending on which part of the world you are in, including and not limited to:

1) it is deliberate, may be the result of use of a deliberately inaccurate datum

2) it is a result of inaccurate orthorectiication arising from the unavailability of suffieicnt accurate DEMs and ground control point positioning - again very likely.

There's a good chance that you are using a different datum. What coordinate system are you using?

According to the iGage AllTopo documentation:

"Most every quadrangle is NAD27 datum with 1,000 meter UTM grids."

Terry

I'm guessing, but maybe the difference simply comes down to Google user Mercator with WGS84:

http://cfis.savagexi.com/articles/2006/05/03/google-maps-deconstructed

If you want to supply a small example, and the workflow you use to transfer coordinates to google maps maybe we can get to the bottom of it.

I have suspected that is the root of the problem! Thanks for the link, interesting reading.

Workflow? What is that? That is precisely the reason I need to get Manifold installed. I have AllTopo on one monitor, hold the cursor over the location, then manually type in the latitude and longitude into Google Earth. Not a bit of flow, and most painful.

:) Let us know how you go, it can be very confusing. If you can get your head around the issues of Assigning projection in Manifold you'll be well prepared for figuring out the problem.

Here is another grey area in determining whether something is commercial or not. Environmental impact assessments protect the environment and public. If something is found which needs protection, it usually costs the client money rather than makes him money. So you have a product that is created for public benefit and not for profit. Environmental impact assessments could make heavy use of google imagery.

Forest-on wrote...

"If something is found which needs protection, it usually costs the client money rather than makes him money. So you have a product that is created for public benefit and not for profit. Environmental impact assessments could make heavy use of google imagery."

The criteria is not whether the organisation makes a profit from their use of GE imagery, but whether the organisation is a commercial operation. In the scenario you cite, the organisation may not make any money from producing a impact assessment report, but it is business cost and a requirment of doing business as much as paying tax is. By using GE imagery a commercial organisation is not needing to buy the imagery from the original data supplier, hence they are saving money that would otherwise have to be spent. This consequently increases the profitability of their business. QED they would be ripping off GE imagery for commercial purposes.

Note that Google Maps can also display KML - you need to post your KML file to a public Internet site and "search" to the file from Google Maps. If you don't have a public site it is easy to set up a usable one on Google Pages - just upload your KML and copy/paste the URL from the published page into Google Maps. Once you have your data showing in Google Maps you can create a link to shortcut the process.

About the only downside is Google Maps is 2D. Imagery is more current in GM. And the street layer is much better.

And there certainly aren't any issues for users looking at Google Maps with your KML overlays.

Hmmm, devil in the details indeed. Just got around to reading the whole thing at http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/help/terms_maps.html. Noticed a couple of intersting / confusing points.

First, there's the mention that a commercial entity can use Google Maps internally, but (if I understand correctly) only externally if you're going through their API, correct?

Second, under photographic imagery, it states that you are not allowed to use it in any commercial manner...

?!

Also, under the TOS 5.3 is a little annoying...

--------- JBurn

I for one am not surprised this, since most of the imagery on GE is provided by commercial suppliers and they were never going to supply imagery costly millions of dollars to Google so everyman and his dog could use it for commercial purposes.

Who could be surprised by that?

I was informed that Microsoft actually purchases the imagery so that its theirs to use as they see fit vs. Google who license the imagery. I'm guessing that this is one of the differences between Google and Microsoft which in tern has an effect on their licenses.

--------- JBurn

Another wrinkle in acceptable use of Google Earth imagery. I received this blurb regarding my GE plus subscription. GE will no longer offer the "Plus" subscripton, instead referring people to use the free GE as you can now upload GPS data to the free version. I also got an offer to upgrade to GE Pro for a discounted $99 for one year.

The blurb for GE Pro is

Try Google Earth Pro. Google Earth Pro includes additional features to let you to do even more with Google Earth. For example, print and save images with 3x higher resolution for your documents and presentations, import GIS data, and import up to 2,500 rows of spreadsheet data. As a loyal Google Earth customer, we are offering you a two-month free trial of Google Earth Pro and the opportunity to purchase a one-year subscription for $99 (regular price of $400). Enter this promo code PLS2PRUS (PLS2PREU for Euros and PLS2PRUK for British Pound) and follow these instructions to sign up.

My interpretation then is GE Pro lets you print and save the imagery in documents and presentations and not just view it in real time in the GE application. Any saving in documents or presentations would constitute commercial use and goes beyond planning the Christmas party or annual fun golf day. Anyone have a contrary interpretation that the GE Pro blurb doesn't allow commercial use of imagery?