Is Web Scraping From Google Maps Legal

If you’re connected with the term ‘Google Maps Scraping’ anyhow, then you must come across a question – Is scraping Google Maps legal or illegal? Okay, so let’s discuss it.
If you are a business owner or marketer, you know that data is the biggest asset of any business in this digital age of technology! Even the top giants like Facebook, Google, and Amazon scraping data to grow. And what if someone extracts all this data from Google Maps within a few minutes? Yes, this is where Google Maps Scraping comes in.

What Is Google Maps Scraping?

Google Maps leads scraping is a technique used to collect content and data from the Google Maps to excel. This Google Maps data is usually saved in a local file so that it can be manipulated and analyzed as needed. If you’ve ever copied and pasted content from a Google Maps business listing into an Excel spreadsheet, this is essentially what Google Maps scraping is, but on a very small scale.
However, when people refer to ‘Google Maps scraping tools,’ they’re usually talking about software applications. Google Maps data extraction tools (or ‘bots’) are programmed to visit Google Maps business listings and extract useful contact information. By automating this process, these Google Maps bots can extract huge amounts of data from Google Maps in a very short time. This is a big benefit for those who need big data in the shortest time from Google Maps.

Is Scraping Google Maps Legal?

Okay, so get back to the point from where we started – Is it legal to do Google Maps Scraping or not? However, doing data scraping from Google Maps is technically not any kind of illegal process but the decision is based on further various factors – How do you use the extracted Google Maps data? or Are you violating the ‘Terms & Conditions’ statements of Google Maps? etc.
Let us take an example, Suppose you give an appointment to meet someone, But a person comes to your office without an appointment.
So, will you allow the person to enter your office? Similarly, the data displayed by Google Maps is generally accessible to the public as it is legal to store that data in your system for personal use.
However, the law regarding Google Maps Scraping is not transparent but there are still some regulations in which you can fall for doing unauthorized Google Maps data scraping. Some of these are listed below:

Copyright Violation
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)
Breach of Contract
Copyright Infringement
Trespassing, etc.

How Does Google Maps Scraper Work?

So, we now know what Google Maps web scraping is, and why different organizations use it. But how does a Google Maps listings scraper work? While the exact method differs depending on the software or tools you’re using, all Google Maps lead generation tools to follow three basic principles:

• Step 1: Sending an HTTP request to a server for the data extraction
• Step 2: Extracting and analyzing the data
• Step 3: Saving the relevant data locally

Google Map Extractor – Scrape Business Data From Google Maps In A Legal Way

Google Maps Data Extractor is a desktop application designed to extract business emails, phone numbers, ratings, reviews, latitudes, longitudes, social media links, website links, and much more from Google Maps business listings. Data can be found on Google Maps by business name, zip code, business profile URL, address, and much more by using this Google Maps Lead Extractor tool.
Google Maps Contact Extractor finds and extracts data from Google Maps automatically and saves the extracted data to a necessary file format, for example, Excel, CSV, or Text file. You can use this extracted Google Maps for marketing, competition, lead generation, and other business strategies. Now, take a look at those strategies which you should follow while doing Google Maps Web Scraping –

1. In the case of provided API, try to avoid Web Scraping from Google Maps
2. Avoid scraping Google Maps data continuously, take a break after 1 to 2 hours.
3. Don’t use the scraped Google Maps data for commercial purposes without the consent of the original owner.
4. Always read the terms and conditions of Google Maps and follow them when scraping data.
5. If someone has made his/her data private on Google Maps, it will be good to ask for permission from them before going further.

From all the above discussion, it can be concluded that data extracting from Google Maps is actually not illegal on its own but one should be ethical while doing it. If done in a good way, web scraping from Google Maps can help us to make the best use of the Google Maps, the biggest example of which is Google Search Engine. So, do not give any reason to the target site owner to block or even sue you for any wrongdoings and respect the Terms of Service (ToS) of Google Maps as well.

Conclusion

In short, Google Map Extractor is a powerful and legal tool to find and extract contact information from thousands of Google Maps business listings on a daily basis.
Google Maps scraping can be beneficial as long as it is used keeping in mind the terms and conditions of the targeted website and with respect to any individual whose data has been extracted.
In the end, data collection from Google Maps with the Google Places Scraper is a completely legal process as it extracts only publicly available business data from Google Maps. Moreover, It can extract emails and phone numbers from websites given on a business listing.