Google kills Gaia

SEARCH OUTFIT Google has killed off an Open Sauce attempt to use its Google Earth project.

Project Gaia was an attempt to reverse engineer Google Earth and implement its functionality in an Open Saucy manner.

However, the project has just received a Cease and Desist letter from Michael Jones, the Chief Technologist of Google Earth, Google Maps, and Google Local search.

Jones told the project that the data does not belong to Google and is licensed on the condition that third parties cannot access raw data.

Jones fears that if Gaia goes ahead, Google will no longer be permitted to use the data and Google Earth will stop spinning.

The project's organiser said that he understood and respected Google's position and has removed all downloads from the site's page.

He has also asked everybody who have ever downloaded gaia 0.1.0 and prior versions to delete all files concerned with the project, which include source code, binary files and image cache.

More here. µ