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

Mon May 14 10:44:03 PDT 2018

Hi;

Wanted to update everyone on what I've found out.  I was contacted by
T-Science but it never came to anything.  They want to deal with sites with
a lot of traffic, so I don't qualify.  I never even got as far as a sales
pitch!

This thread has been very quiet, except for me.  Has anyone else looked
into it?  Does anyone's university care?  I'm finding from asking around
that no one knows about it.

Liz

On Thu, May 3, 2018 at 3:36 PM, Elizabeth Dobbins <eldobbins at alaska.edu>
wrote:

> Margaret;
>
> I got the sense talking to the Google sales person that it hadn't occurred
> to them that users might be in our situation. She stressed the $200 credit
> until I made it clear that a credit is irrelevant if we can't use the
> billing model.  They are thinking of individual (the $200 credit) or
> enterprise ($$ for them) users.  Even the fact that I use it on a web page
> as opposed to a mobile app blew her mind.
>
> It couldn't hurt to talk to them.  She was friendly and eager to help.  I
> hope seeking info and giving them feedback will be helpful.  But they are
> so big, I worry the message can't get through.
>
> Liz
>
> On Thu, May 3, 2018 at 2:59 PM, Margaret O'Brien <margaret.obrien at ucsb.edu
> > wrote:
>
>> 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
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Long Term Ecological Research Network
>>> im mailing list
>>> im at lternet.edu
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.lternet.edu/pipermail/im/attachments/20180514/5281a86e/attachment.html>