[LTER-im] Google Maps API to require credit card?

[Elizabeth Dobbins]

Hi;

I investigated this by clicking the "Contact Sales" button on the web page
you mentioned.  I had a long discussion with a nice lady in Atlanta wherein
I impressed upon her that 1) for 10 years, my use of Google Maps has been
integral to the scientific research I do, and 2) the University is not set
up for billing this way.  She mentioned that other products have an "edu
model", but Maps doesn't because this is a new system.  She took my
concerns to a meeting where they agreed that many people use Maps the way I
do at universities.  She said they would consider including an edu
exemption in the Maps pricing depending on how many other people contact
them with concerns like mine.

In the meantime, she has forwarded my case to a 3rd party resource - T
Science?  They partner with Google to provide other billing options, but
that's all I know so far.

Anyone else having experiences in this strange new world?

Liz

On Wed, May 2, 2018 at 3:04 PM, Elizabeth Dobbins <eldobbins at alaska.edu>
wrote:

> This is very distressing.  I've contacted Google to see what my options
> are.
>
> Liz
>
> On Wed, May 2, 2018 at 2:13 PM, Wade Sheldon <sheldon at uga.edu> wrote:
>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> For those (probably most) of you employing Google Maps for your websites,
>> I just received notice that the services are being consolidated under a
>> "Google Maps Platform" and all use of the JavaScript API will require an
>> API key linked to a credit card and billing account, which is a non-starter
>> for us and I suspect most other institutions. There's $200 of free use and
>> tools to set quotas to avoid going over, but we simply can't deal with CC
>> billing at UGA for something like this.
>>
>> Here's the gist:
>>
>> "We would like to highlight a few updates that may impact your
>> implementation. Beginning June 11th, we are launching our new pricing plan
>> and providing all users access to support. We’ll continue to offer a free
>> tier — all developers will receive $200 of free monthly usage of our core
>> products.
>>
>> *In addition, this change will require you to enable billing and
>> associate it with all of your Google Maps Platform projects.* Creating a
>> billing account helps us better understand your usage so we can continue
>> developing helpful products. It also allows you to scale easily with less
>> downtime and fewer performance issues if your product grows beyond the $200
>> of free monthly usage. For additional visibility and control you can set
>> daily quotas or billing alerts."
>>
>> The guide for existing users (https://cloud.google.com/maps
>> -platform/user-guide/) indicates they are supposedly "expanding support
>> for non-profits" so there are potentially work-arounds, at least at the
>> institutional level, but not a hassle we really need just to keep our stuff
>> running.
>>
>> More of the high cost of using free stuff I guess.
>>
>> Anyway, let us know if anyone hears anything different on this topic, or
>> finds a work-around, and we'll be researching the non-profit angle this
>> month.
>>
>> Sigh....
>>
>> Wade Sheldon
>> GCE-LTER
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> im mailing list
>> im at lternet.edu
>>
>>
>
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