Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  Google maps shows the way forward (01 Jul 2005) The danger with Google Maps is that third parties may end up building rich, complex information services on the back of what is, at its core, a marketing ploy by a very large public corporation. So if times get hard, or Google gets swallowed up by another company, in the way that Malcolm Glazer has taken over Manchester United, all bets will be off. That doesn't mean we shouldn't use the mapping API to have fun and do cool stuff. It just means that with maps, as with other major elements of the information infrastructure, we should be looking for better guarantees than a corporate promise to "do no evil". Article URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4640893.stm Read 238 more articles from BBC News sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: Intranets: losing the language of enforcement     This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy