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Reference

Data and privacy

Where places come from, what we keep and for how long, and how anyone can have something removed.

Where places come from

Every place is a business listing that anyone can see on Google Maps. We collect listings when someone asks for an area we haven't searched recently, and we save them, so the next search there answers at once. We read only what a listing shows to anyone, and we never sign in to Google.

gmaps.dev is not affiliated with Google or Alphabet. This is not Google's API.

What we keep

For each place, what its listing shows:

  • Its name, category, description and status, such as “Permanently closed”.
  • Its address, coordinates, plus code and time zone.
  • Its phone numbers and website.
  • Its rating, how many reviews it has and how many gave each star, its opening hours and how busy it usually is.
  • Its price range, the cards it accepts, the features it lists (such as wheelchair access), and its links for menus, orders and bookings.
  • Google's ids for it, the link to it on Google Maps, and when we first saw it and last collected it.

On paid plans, email addresses too. We look for them on the business's own website, only when a customer asks, and show them only to paid accounts that accepted the acceptable use policy.

We never keep review text, reviewers' names, photos, Street View images or the owner's profile. They're dropped before anything is saved.

Places describes every field.

Everyone searches the same places

There's one set of saved places, and every customer searches it. When your collection finds a new place, you pay one credit for it, and the next customer who searches that area gets it free. Nobody gets a place to themselves: the same place can go to many customers.

Deleting your account doesn't delete places, because they were never only yours. Your collections, exports, keys and webhooks go with the account.

Empty doesn't mean nobody is there

An empty answer means we haven't found places there yet, not that there are none. Maybe nobody searched that area for that word, or the businesses there describe themselves with other words.

When we search an area and find nothing, that counts as searched for only 7 days. After that, the next collection there looks again. An area where we found places counts as searched for 180 days. A collection that finds nothing costs nothing.

To find more, try other words for the same thing, or a larger area.

How long we keep things

WhatHow long
PlacesUntil we accept a request to remove them. Once our copy of an area is more than 180 days old, the next collection there updates it.
An area where a search found nothing7 days. Then the next collection there looks again.
A collection's places and its progress log30 days from when you start it. The collection's counts and charges stay.
An export link24 hours. The file is built when you open the link, and we never store it.
Webhook delivery log7 days.
Your account, after you delete it14 days, so you can change your mind. Then we delete it and everything it owns. Payment records the law makes us keep stay, without the account.

Removal requests don't expire, so what was removed stays out. The privacy policy covers backups and the rest.

Removal requests

Anyone can ask us to remove a place, a phone number, an email address or a website with the removal form. It needs no account and costs nothing. The person confirms by email, and someone on our team reviews the request.

  • A place: the whole place goes.
  • A phone number or an email address: we take it off every place that lists it. The places stay.
  • A website: we take the website, and every email address at that domain, off every place that lists them.

Once we accept a request, what it names leaves searches, place lookups, collections' places, live progress and exports at once. We erase our saved copy within an hour and never save it again.

Files exported before then still have it. Search again rather than reusing an old file.

Projects we build on

GET /v1/attributions lists the open-source projects and data we use, with their licenses and notices. It needs no key and costs nothing:

curl https://api.gmaps.dev/v1/attributions

Your part

  • A place is a business listing, not permission to contact anyone. Before you call, message or email, check the law where you and the business are.
  • Don't contact anyone who asked to be removed, even from a file you kept.
  • Email addresses need a paid plan and your acceptance of the acceptable use policy.
  • Don't use our results alone to make a decision with legal or similarly serious effects on a person, such as turning down a loan or a job.

The acceptable use policy lists what you may and may not do. The terms of service are the contract, and the privacy policy covers what we do with data about you and about the people in our results.