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…
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
It could be handled better by forcing Google to offer choices for map providers as they literally already for browsing.
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.