Google Maps is over! The tech giant complies with EU orders to remove navigation services from search results - Jason Deegan
jasondeegan.com
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.

  • Vinny_93@lemmy.worldEnglish
    992·
    4 days ago

    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.

    • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
      446·
      4 days ago

      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

      • BassTurd@lemmy.worldEnglish
        22·
        4 days ago

        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.

        • calcopiritus@lemmy.worldEnglish
          71·
          4 days ago

          Some people would not select google though. And google can’t afford people knowing that there’s competitors to Google! So better fuck everyone over by just disabling the integration.

        • themurphy@lemmy.mlEnglish
          3·
          4 days ago

          True. Google is using a monopoly and forcing users to use Google Maps on their platform.

          There’s no competition, and everyone is worse of. It’s a long term good change by the EU.

        • Bob@feddit.nlEnglish
          32·
          4 days ago

          almost everyone would select Google maps and get a better experience.

          Spoken like someone who’s never used a different map provider!

          • BassTurd@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            4 days ago

            Can you give me an alternative that you truely think is better than google maps, not just alternative, something that is objectively better?

            • Bob@feddit.nlEnglish
              3·
              3 days ago

              Objective ways Openstreetmap is better:

              • More regularly updated (one street I used to live on in Amsterdam – a cosmopolis – has only recently been added to Google Maps, whereas I used Openstreetmap to find my way there when I moved in four years ago).
              • People who update it get credited rather than an already disgustingly rich company; you can submit edits to Google Maps but they often don’t get implemented, at least not with any alacrity, and they keep the intellectual property rights to the data you submit.
              • Better for privacy (probably goes without saying).
              • Open-source, for what it’s worth.
              • The map is colour-coded and actually easily legible rather than every way being a white or light grey, sometimes hair-thin line on a white background.
              • Actually useful for people not sitting in cars as it shows pedestrian ways, cycleways, parks in detail, crossings, gates, stiles, etc.
              • Useful for non-navigation purposes, in fact it’s the map of choice for people gathering map data.
              • The directions don’t send you the wrong way up one-way streets or along roads you can’t ride your vehicle on, among other mistakes.
              • Openstreetmap shows public amenities like bins, water fountains, benches, etc. I’ve used it to help my dad who has Parkinson’s get a quick bit of rest while visiting cities, for example.
              • Google Maps is admittedly quicker for looking for branches of big companies, but you can do that without a map, and Google Maps is chock full of random businesses registered at people’s homes and searches can be obfuscated because richer companies pay to come higher in the search results.
              • Google Maps has public transport info, but the info is so often wrong that I would seriously advise against using it.
                • I used to work at a train station and people would come up asking why the train shown on Google Maps wasn’t showing on the departure board;
                • I’ve seen people miss the last train of the night because Google Maps said it was leaving later than it actually was;
                • it often doesn’t show the quickest or easiest route and you can’t refine the search the way you can on public transport apps,
                • etc. etc. I’d say the info on Google Maps is so bad that it makes Openstreetmap better because it doesn’t tempt you with the false promise.
              • The other features Google Maps is garnished with aren’t really needed if you can read a map or if you just need a map, like:
                • street view (nice to have and has made Geoguessr possible (now pay-to-play in part thanks to Google’s closed-source APIs), but itself updated by volunteers who have to resort to things like holding signs with their company names to get credit and only updated every few years or so on average),
                • opening times (whether it’s correct information aside, you can just look that up otherwise and get it from the horse’s mouth), or
                • searching for something like cafés within a given radius (when’s the last time you went to eat out and thought, “any café will do, but I’m slightly pickier than to warrant just walking further up the road to find somewhere, and I can’t be arsed just looking at the local area on the map and picking out cafés”? And are those cafés even open when Google Maps says they’re open? Not necessarily!).
              • I’m sure something else I can’t think of at the moment. You can see I’ve been asked this a fair few times.
              • BassTurd@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                2 days ago

                I will give this a good look. Thanks for the detailed response. I’m working on degoogling, but some products I’m not willing to move on from because the quality is just better, so I’m happy to have something to look into here.

                • Bob@feddit.nlEnglish
                  1·
                  2 days ago

                  I didn’t expect such a positive reply, haha. Good luck with it, I’ve completely degoogled except for the odd Youtube sesh and I haven’t looked back so far.

        • callouscomic@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          4 days ago

          Most browsers allow choice of search provider. If you choose Google, you’d get this, if you choose a different search engine, you’d get a different experience. People already had that choice.

          • Petter1@lemm.eeEnglish
            2·
            4 days ago

            The monopoly company try to argue like that, but as seen m365 and teams, windows and edge, safari and iPhone, iCloud and iOS, and many more.

            Where you intend to use just one product of a company but the company bundles stuff so that lazy human beings, like most of us, just use their stuff and never check put the competition.

            If we let it slide like that, in the far future, you decide shamppoo, food, gadgets, clothing etc. all from the same company that rents you your home and have full control over your live.

            Do you want that?

    • Cavemanfreak@lemm.eeEnglish
      91·
      4 days ago

      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.

    • mannycalavera@feddit.ukEnglish
      633·
      4 days ago

      Like… and hear me out… save the preference with some sort of Cookie technology? Do you think the EU would be up for that?

      • jonathan@lemmy.zipEnglish
        691·
        4 days ago

        I can’t tell whether you’re being intentionally ironic. Yes the EU would be up for it. The EU didn’t ban cookies. Putting it simply, you do not need a cookie banner if you aren’t tracking people.

        • TJA!@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          15·
          4 days ago

          To make it even more clear let me rephrase it:

          If you want to store sth like that, it would be classified as functional and you wouldn’t even need a cookie banner for it.

          Only if you want to use it to track people you need to notify them

        • emax_gomax@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          4 days ago

          Pretty much. Although I continue to be annoyed this ever even needed to be asked. There’s literally a browser setting to communicate this “do not track”. EU really should’ve just forced everyone to respect it :/.

          • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
            32·
            4 days ago

            I agree – and before DnT, there was P3P, which also would have done it – but it is what it is at the moment.

            I’m mostly exasperated with it because I wipe all cookies each browser restart, which is a much more-reliable and less-obnoxious solution than the EU’s regulatory approach of trying to convince the remote end not to make use of its ability to set them. If you do that, you get the cookie banner every time on sites that show it, which means that the cookie banner regulation has made my experience rather worse. And unfortunately, some sites show the banner to non-EU-based users – we don’t elect EU representatives, but we still get some spillover from their policies.

            There’s some Firefox plugin that will try to hide the cookie banners:

            https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/istilldontcareaboutcookies/

            EDIT: Yeah, from the description on there, the author is doing exactly what I am with the “not retaining cookies” approach, and smacking into how poorly that interacts with the cookie banner regulation:

            The EU regulations require that any website using tracking cookies must get user’s permission before installing them. These warnings appear on most websites until the visitor agrees with the website’s terms and conditions. Imagine how irritating that becomes when you surf anonymously or if you delete cookies automatically every time you close the browser.

      • Vinny_93@lemmy.worldEnglish
        24·
        4 days ago

        If you want to store your map preferences, save the preferences to your account and make sure you’re logged in.

        I’m not saying anything like this is preferable or whatever but there’s also little sense in removing all semblance of user experience in favour of removing power from tech giants.