Google Maps app on your smartphone is one of those wonderful things that makes owning the gadget an absolute joy. Instant, essential knowledge. Today, Google announced that it would be robbing its iOS and Android apps of their purity by allowing advertisers to advertise against your searches.
So as in the example in the device screens above, you’ll no longer necessarily get the best Google result based on your location when you search for a gardening shop. If there happens to be a shop that has added Google’s new location extensions to their AdWords search campaigns, that’ll be the shop that shows up. The advertised placement, as always, will be denoted as such.
This shouldn’t be all that surprising, and obviously, it’s not something we can really be mad about. Google has spent an untold ginormous amount of money making the best damn maps app out there — and it gives it away for free. We were gonna pay for it somehow, and as far as encroachments go, this is hardly the most offensive approach. Still, it’s always sad to see our baby that we knew so well defiled. [Google]