nfmungard:
I will look into restricting user maps going forward
At what point does the Google "money clock" tick up another "access"? We often get maps when we don't really need them - this is particularly the case with "user maps" both for ourselves and on occasions when we might look at another member's page. Does any display of a "user page" clock a use or only if we go to the map and zoom etc etc?? If the latter could make maps subject to an additional "map request" button?
By the way - I seem to be quite frequently getting a "darkened" version of the maps with "For development purposes only" written across them. I presume that this is what happens when the "quota" kicks in rather than a stage in the transfer to 2 map providers (I see they still have "Google" on the copyright line and also it happens across all map types)?? If so then they still provide the main functions even if they don't "look" as good!! So , IMO, they wouldn't cause a major loss if they came up quite often.