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If I hosted NerdDinner and had google ad-sense would I be a commercial user of Bing Maps / Virtual Earth thus have licensing costs?

I've looked and found this question: Virtual Earth or Google Maps and the TOS: http://www.microsoft.com/maps/product/terms.html but neither answer my question..

I've found some articles that say as long as the site is free to use, then you fit into the non-commercial clause. But these articles are from 2006, sometimes refer to google maps, and often express confusion. I'd prefer some backup, rather than opinion if at all possible.

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itchi
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because **it is about licensing or legal issues**, not programming or software development. [See here](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/274964/1402846) for details, and the [help/on-topic] for more. – Kevin Brown-Silva Jun 16 '15 at 23:54

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IANAL, but your best friend is careful reading of the MSFT Bing MFE TOS, which you've already linked to in your question.

I'd also send Microsoft an email asking whether they would consider that commercial, but I don't think what you're talking about is commercial. Per the TOS:

* Licensing or selling Applications that use or access the Service; or
* Offering goods or services for a fee through your Application, or promoting
  locations at which such goods or services are offered.

is considered "commercial use".

lfaraone
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  • thanks for taking the tie to responding to a question I felt was dead. I'm really perplexed by the "promoting locations at which such good or services are offered".. Does that mean a business directory that happened to have a map of the location would be commercial? – itchi Sep 13 '09 at 16:54
  • I don't think so, but it depends on your definition of "promotion". Again, contacting a lawyer or asking Microsoft is your best bet. – lfaraone Sep 15 '09 at 14:24
  • "Offering goods or services for a fee through your Application" is the key phrase. Since you are offering a "service", as in advertising, through your Application (the application that implements Bing Maps), then Yes you would need to purchase Bing Maps licensing. Unless of course you get permission from MS to use it for Free. – Chris Pietschmann Oct 26 '09 at 01:54