Google Maps Directions Adding Ads For Nearby Businesses?

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I'm not sure where I stand on this just yet. I guess I'd have to see it in action but, for the most part, seeing ads for local businesses that are in the area I'm searching doesn't really bother me at all.

To help advertisers reach consumers searching for physical business locations, we’re introducing new local search ads across Google.com and Google Maps. Advertisers using location extensions will be able to prominently showcase their business locations when consumers search for things like “shoe store” or “car repair near me.”
 
Google offers a world free of privacy and enslaved to advertising. If this is a world you can support and encourage, by all means use Google's products with eyes open. The rest of us should probably look for solutions elsewhere.
 
I'm afraid I'll have to disagree and call it even greater encroachment of advertising. You may have a point if there wasn't (in the Google Maps Android app, or online) a very simple way to voluntarily check out local businesses nearby. There's even a huge special area for restaurants that can be filtered via just about anything (Lunch, Dinner, Coffee, Fastest, Best quality, Places locals go etc..) . If you want to see non-restaurant businesses, you can just search for them and you'll get Google's reviews, lists, and locations. This already showcases business locations nicely, without overt advertising expected or necessary.

With all this available for a user to voluntarily access, there's zero justification for other things butting in if the user has already decided. This also opens up all sorts of "totally natural market forces hurrdurrr" such as ads for the places that paid popping up first with or without "sponsored content" listed, supposedly independent reviews that are really sockpuppets, or getting badgered about going to all those lovable advertising subscribers taking up the screen where I'm trying to follow my directions to where I actually want to go, and more. With the sickening state of increasingly sophisticated "sponsored content" these days, Google has already done more than enough to give advertisers all they wish on a silver platter. If Google PR can be believed that they actually just want to help people connect to things they REALLY want more accurately, not just foist whatever slime they're paid to burn into user corneas, then they can at least wait to advertise until they're actually looking for something, mark ads clearly, and not get in the way of users making a selection even if they "choose wrong".
 
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google maps is still free right? if it is they can unfortunately add as many ads as the want...
 
if you are really that worried about being online, unplug. I don't get how people expect total privacy and anonymity online. its never been and will never be that way. so to them I say; toss your cell in a lake, uplug your modem, put on you tinfoil hat and go live in the woods.
 
pendragon1 said:
if you are really that worried about being online, unplug. I don't get how people expect total privacy and anonymity online. its never been and will never be that way. so to them I say; toss your cell in a lake, uplug your modem, put on you tinfoil hat and go live in the woods.
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That's an interesting response to Google's abuse of privacy, aggressive profiling, and constantly shoving ads in your face. Surely there's some middle ground to be found?
 
your describing basically everything and every service that is online. you cannot get away from it. so either learn to live with it or don't use it. sure you can get ad blocks and all that shit but I find those more of a pain in the ass than the ads themselves.
 
Pretty sure google has been featuring sponsored nav results for quite some time. There have been times where I might search for something like "gas station" or "hardware store", and it prominently zoomed out and put a huge dot on certain stores that were further away from me than one right around the corner. It still listed the one around the corner, but it displayed it with a beacon about the size of a single pixel, very easy to overlook and naturally your eyes were drawn to the larger beacons thinking those were the only locations that matched your criteria. Also I've been navigated through commercial areas of a city center rather than a very obvious freeway overpass when trying to get to a certain destination, and there's no way it was just due to traffic analysis. I went through 5 fucking redlights just to travel half a mile in the thickest part of town which was nothing but restaurants and shops before my passenger was like "you know you could just go this way".
 
nysmo said:
before my passenger was like "you know you could just go this way".
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At least until you're stuck in the future inside a Google self-driving car that chooses not the quickest route, but the route that's most lucrative for Google. Can we even trust these things would take us where we want to go instead of dropping us off at similar businesses with a bigger ad buy?
 
The doom and gloom tinfoil hat wearers like the poster above make so much noise about only happens to the ignorant and uneducated who don't bother learning how to take control of their computing devices. Those people are the same kind of idiots that happily fill out their real information details on social media accounts forums and other websites...
 
I'm ok with it. Nothing is free. Google has to make money somehow - if you use their services, deal with it. If you don't like ads, I believe there are still premium maps you can purchase.
 
steakman1971 said:
I'm ok with it. Nothing is free. Google has to make money somehow - if you use their services, deal with it. If you don't like ads, I believe there are still premium maps you can purchase.
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Well there's still a valid reason to complain, because when mega corporations like this give away a product that is pretty solid as Google Maps is, they crush any potential competition. It's like the mafia buying you a house and luxury car and everything you need. So even if I wanted to spend money on a product that gives me honest results, I cant, because they all died.
 
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