Google Maps is over! The tech giant complies with EU orders to remove navigation services from search results
Google Maps is over! The tech giant complies with EU orders to remove navigation services from search results
For years, Google Maps has been a go-to tool for millions worldwide, seamlessly integrated into search results for instant access to directions, locations, and more. But ... Continue Reading →
For years, Google Maps has been a go-to tool for millions worldwide, seamlessly integrated into search results for instant access to directions, locations, and more. But if you’ve noticed something missing recently, you’re not imagining things. Due to European Union regulations, Google has been forced to remove its Maps functionality from its search results, marking a significant shift in how we interact with the tech giant’s ecosystem.
Talk about hyperbole...
Google Maps is over!
No, the integration in the search results when searching the web might be gone, but you can still go to https://maps.google.com/ and find what you need.
This is not a significant shift with how we are interacting with Google, it is a minor change.
Calm down.
This is not a significant shift with how we are interacting with Google, it is a minor change.
Eh... Most people (Not the tech literate ones) interact with the internet nearly wholly using the Google search bar. To the point where many have NO idea where to put a URL in their phone to actually go straight to a website and often just google the url and click the first link.
For those people, this will be a significant shift.
To underline this statement: Microsoft Bing is trying to spoof Google UI when people search Google.com.
Most tech literates do not understand the workflows of ppl who have no clue. Having done a shitton of 1st Level Tech Support for an ISP in my youth has given me the mostly useless ability to know how the clueless use their computer.I wish i could forget most of that bullshit tho, it brought me far too young to the conclusion that humanity is a long way from becoming immune to snake oil vendors, scam artists and con men because most people don't have a fucking clue what they are doing.
Holy shit! Top comment right there! I read the headline and thought "Geez, that's going to leave a massive hole in the maps market. There is no clear runner to fill that role. That probably means we'll see a few years of innovations as competitors try their best to come up with that new killer feature that makes their maps the best."
No.
None of that. Google.com will just act slightly different on their search pages.
A hyperbole would be to make a point, an intentional exaggeration for emphasis or generalization.
This is just a lie.
"Google maps is over ...there! It used to be here, now it's there. Go click a link or something, like we did in the old days."
Click a link? Oh you young whippersnapper! We used to have a note with written domain names or even IP addresses that we would type in if we wanted to go somewhere online.
Sell your Google stocks now. This is the nail in the coffin!
I've had Google Maps added as a search option for years. Because I use Qwant for search, and the maps functionality in Qwant sucks.
It's cumbersome to change habits if you just wanna search for X but can't have the shortcut to the location in the results.
Now I need to double search.It is but it's also better for consumers.
Google dominates search by bundling lots of services in one place and destroying all competition. They want you tied in to all their services and to never leave. You ar ethe product and they want to sell every bit of data they can and sell you to advertisers.
The tech giants keep abusing market dominance to dominate new markets. Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer with windiws and destroyed the browser market. Then Google search sites and android aggressively pushes Chrome and now dominates the browser market. Microsoft bundles Teams in Office and destroys Slack; one of many egrarious actions by Microsoft over the years. Apple forces all browsers on iOS to use Safari - so you can't bypass the Apple app and service marketplace - their 30% cut is too important.
Regulation is needed to break up the domination of these tech monopploes. By separating navigation from search, people get back in the habit of using other services for navigation results.
That might be Google maps, or that might be Bing maps or OpenStreetMaps. But Google can't use bundling to make consumers too lazy to leave.
It's a start. A minimal inconvenience for users benefits everyone longer term.
I agree, it is a slight annoyance, but that is all it is.
Or you could switch to another search engine such as Kagi or DuckDuckGo.
how is it over? you just type in maps.google.com like you used to type in mapquest.con
But I still type in maps.google.com already because I don't use Google search. But I still use maps.
Google maps is the best True dat. Double true.
I understand the why of this but this is not an improvement. I suppose search engines should ask you which maps provider you want and then show results based on that.
I suppose search engines should ask you which maps provider you want and then show results based on that.
Why would they ever enable choice. That's not very capitalism
If they allowed users to select a default, almost everyone would select Google maps and get a better experience. By not giving the user a choice everyone loses, because Google maps is still going to be the top option. I'm surprised that this functionality either doesn't exist already or isn't allowed, because capitalism.
I suppose search engines should ask you which maps provider you want and then show results based on that.
Google could have done that, but they chose to go this router to inconvenience users, so that they then could blame the EU for this.
Like... and hear me out.... save the preference with some sort of Cookie technology? Do you think the EU would be up for that?
It's been that way for months already. Maybe four or six I'd say.
I wonder whether alternative solutions were discussed: like Google retaining integration but breaking off Maps division into it's own entity that has to use same API's as everyone else and use the same integration points. Would've been more user-friendly thing to do.
Is this news? The "Maps" tab has been missing from my search results for a while here in Germany.
Same in Denmark
For users, this tight integration was incredibly convenient.
In Firefox, I have had any search starting with "gm" set up to do a Google Maps search. So "gm Omaha" will go to Omaha.
That is, I create a bookmark that's aimed at:
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=%25sand then in the Bookmark Manager, set the keyword to "gm".
Kagi -- which uses bang prefixes to do searches on external sites -- appears to have done the same thing on the service side with "!gm". So "!gm Omaha". (They normally have their own, OpenStreetMap-based map thing, but if you want to do Google Maps, that'll do it.)
EDIT: For some reason, the Lemmy Web UI seems determined to convert "%s" to "%25s" in the URL above, and I can't seem to find an escape sequence that avoids that. It's intended to just be "%s".
I use DuckDuckGo so I use
!m.%25 is the URL encoding for 0x25 (or 37 decimal), the ASCII code for the percent sign. Basically it seems to recognize that it is a URL and then URL-encode characters that are not allowed in URLs
Probably it should only do so if the link is actually being hyperlinked which doesn't happen for blockquoted text, so I guess it's probably a Lemmy bug.
Thanks that's really useful
"Over" my ass...
Pics or it didn’t happen
Didn't even notice. Well done EU.
Is this a big deal? I realize I have a skewed view because I dropped Google search ages ago, but... when I need maps results I go to a maps app, I never really relied on the search bar for that, even when I did use Google search.
It is also a pain in the arse for a normal user. When I search for a local plumber, instead of typing my query into the address bar, I need to go to maps.google.com first, and search there. These days, half of my searches are for businesses (the other half for spelling or correct usage of a difficult word), and all those searches now need to be made directly on the map page.
You can reactivate the map integration in your Google account settings. Something called "Linked Google services", check "maps".
For a user who never uses maps or a user who always uses maps, this has no effect.
It's for those who use both integrated, but thats pretty rare nowdays. Much easier to ask maps "restaurants near me, plumbers open near me" than having to watch gemini type something out and "rate your plumber" forums, or worse aggregated yelp links.
Nobody will be affected by this, except maybe our data to be harder to mismanage. The headline is stupid.
Much easier to ask maps "restaurants near me, plumbers open near me" than having to watch gemini type something out and "rate your plumber" forums, or worse aggregated yelp links.
Even easier to just slap the thing you're looking for into the search bar and then read the reviews and get directions all from the one webpage, why did you bring Gemini into this?
Nobody will be affected by this
Nobody I know opens maps to search shit, every one of them would be impacted by this
Still showing up in Australia right now.
Probably stay like that until Australia joins the EU
Well they're in the EBU*, so that's only one letter off... maybe soon?
^(*an associate of the EBU, couldn't let my technically incorrect joke stand)
LOL
I'm ok with this, I can live and love in my peasant existence without their hovering, seemingly inescapable help. If I have to do without Waze someday, that's a different story.
That explains why I
- Can't search for <city> and get a direct link to the maps + position
- The toolbar of services missing maps entirely.
For all the things the EU does...What a stupid decision.
This may feel bad short term but this is actually good long term. It opens up the possibility for competitors for similar map services to exist. When google combined their search engine product with their maps product, everyone had to automatically use their map product. This is very monopolistic
But they had to take 20 years for that decision.
For example in duckduckgo you can type "city !gm" and it will take you to Google maps search results for "city".
You can also use ddg.gg as a quick way to be redirected to duckduckgo.com without having to type the whole thing
True but still annoying.
Wondered if I did something wrong and this happened well before I read about it here.
Do you ever wonder why most Europeans has about 40 telecom companies offering you internet at your particular address? Regulation and anti-monopoly works.
Fuck EU
Google was using their monopoly to take away user choices. This is a long term win for everyone, but you can't see it if you only think shortsighted.
Google COULD just enable a choice in map provider, but they just refused.
Hey, no talking. Dick in mouth at all times.
I was worried that this would be like those cookies pop-ups, but the functionality is still present here in the land of the free...
That feature is now gone for users in the EU. Additionally, the Maps tab, once prominently displayed alongside Images and News, has also vanished.
Actually wild of the EU to force an inferior product on people. Glad I'm not there for once.
No. Google did it this way so people would blame the EU. They also could just have added more choice to the interface but they rather wanted to remove it to show their users "how bad the EU is".
Same thing with the cookie banners. EU said you should give your users the choice if they want to be tracked. And the companies build these ugly banners so everyone would blame the EU. But they could also just have stopped tracking their users.
It's not about enforcing an inferior product - it's about enforcing the freedom of choice. The way google was forcing its services down everybodies throat led to a market where people didn't even know that something besides gMaps exists. Now competitors at least have some sort of chance.
This is about evening the playing field, making other mapping services having a less difficult way to compete