Via way of OgleEarth we learned that the developer of MobileGmaps (http://www.mgmaps.com/) has been asked by Google to stop serving google map tilies to mobile devices. The application was used by mobile users to display map data from Google, Yaahoo! and microsoft.. apparently this application went against the licensing arrangement provided by Google.

In a recent post on the website, the Mobile GMap developer notes the following: "I deeply regret this decision by Google and I believe that it is only going to result in making people use Google's competitors, but... that's their decision."

This was in response to a letter he received from the Google legal team (aka. google enforcement team) . As noted by the developer, part of the letter from Gogle read... "As indicated in the Terms of Service
accompanying Google Maps for mobile
(http://www.google.com/gmm/tc.html?hl=en), you should not create
derivative works, such as your application, without contacting us and obtaining our permission first."

On the upside, the Mobile GMaps develoepr notes... So what other options are available to you? Well, plenty of them: MGMaps includes support for maps from Microsoft, Yahoo, Ask.com and OpenStreetMap.org"

Obviously, users of Google maps wanting to have access to the application via mobile can use Google's very own Google Maps Mobile - see www.google.com/gmm or go to http://mobile.google.com on your mobile device. I have to wonder how many other applications out there are in violation of the lengthy legal disclaimer that determines what users of the Google maps API can or can't do.

Source:

• See http://www.ogleearth.com/2007/08/google_to_mobil.html
• http://www.mgmaps.com/news.php?item=136