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

[Margaret O'Brien]

Hi Liz, et al -
Well, we at SBC (at UCSB) are certainly affected! do you get feeling that
we should all voice our concerns independently?

I am following up with our sys-admin here. He had not heard of it yet --
but is already checking with folks at the campus level.

Margaret

Margaret O'Brien
ORCID: 0000-0002-1693-8322
Information Management
Marine Science Institute, UCSB
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
805-893-2071 (voice)
http://environmentaldatainitiative.org
http://sbc.marinebon.org
http://sbc.lternet.edu



On Thu, May 3, 2018 at 3:39 PM, Elizabeth Dobbins <eldobbins at alaska.edu>
wrote:

> 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
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Long Term Ecological Research Network
>>> im mailing list
>>> im at lternet.edu
>>>
>>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> im mailing list
> im at lternet.edu
>
>
>
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