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by 0xDEFC0DE 2648 days ago
Not to defend Uber/NIH syndrome, but if Google wanted to specifically charge Uber more for maps because of usage, could they legally do that?

Maybe the rewrites are risk management?

3 comments

They could just use a third-party (and at their scale, they can definitely negotiate a custom deal where they feed back usage data to improve the third-party’s service) or even use open source solutions like OpenStreetMaps. Even the latter (with the overhead of hosting it themselves) makes total sense at their scale.
That'd be in a contract though, so what if Google decided to not renew and only let Uber know like a month before the contract ended?

If these questions seem dumb it's because I know pretty little about legal battles in software.

I'd wager this contract has a 90+ day termination notification requirement at a minimum.
Google increased maps cost for everybody though, not just Uber.

https://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/features/google-maps-apis-new-...

I'm asking whether only Uber could be charged more.
You've hit the nail on the head. Uber can't risk being one management decision from Google away from shutting down.
They are already forced to be like that by being in the app store.
Were they not recently embroiled in a lawsuit, too?