Re: Increasing Static Maps quota

I don't think a user exporting a web page as a PDF violates the terms,
but IANAL. If it's OK to print the web page, it should be OK to print
it as a PDF. Here's an example:

I see a web page that I'd like to have a hard copy of when I'm away
from my desk/home. I print it to a file so I can send it to my printer
it later--in Linux it is really easy to print to a PDF file directly,
but if you're using a Microsoft operating system that is limited by
antitrust issues, it's still quite easy. Just print with a postscript
printer driver to a file, then I use a program to convert between
a .ps and a .pdf. Again, that's super-easy in Linux ("$ ps2pdf
filename.ps"), but not that hard in Windows. You just have to install
Ghostscript (or buy Acrobat) since Microsoft can't include some basic
functionality due to antitrust.

PDF is not very different from postscript anyway, and if you're
printing the page at all on a postscript printer you are already
converting to postscript. That's the file that gets sent to the
printer, either over parallel, USB, or network. I think some newer
printers are even starting to use PDF in place of postscript. So if
you're allowed to print it at all, you're allowed to make a PDF.

Now, making the PDF on the server-side might be a problem. However,
it's just a file--PDF's can be displayed in a web browser too using a
plugin. If you can make an HTML file why not a PDF file? It's just a
format.

The problem that I see is that you are making a copy of the image and
then providing it to your user. I think if you could have the PDF
download the image you'd solve all your problems. You can certainly
put network content into a PDF using JavaScript. This technique might
solve it for you: you don't get the image from your server, so you
don't have limit issues. The user's computer asks for the image from
google.com when the PDF is opened.

Dynamic images instructions:
www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/lc_dynamic_images.pdf

Your Static Maps image link would be the source for the dynamic image.

Definitely look closely again at the terms. I don't think there's a
difference between HTML and PDF; what's important is if the file is
displayed in a web browser. Most people use a web browser plugin to
view PDF downloads. There might be a way to ensure that, and only
serve the PDF to a plugin and not for download.

Of course Google might disagree with me on my interpretation of this,
but it is reasonable in my view.

IANAL

-Brian

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