MapQuest is owned by oil companies

[snopes]

Comment: I was told by a friend that mapquest is owned by oil companies.
So, they send you on a longer route past more gas stations. Could this be
true? I have started using randmcnally instead.

[lord_feldon]

Let's do an experiment, then.

Kennedy Airport to LAX

Google: 2829 miles

Rand McNally: 2839 miles

Mapquest: 2833 miles

Yahoo: 2820 miles

It's Rand McNally that's the evil one. They want you to have to buy more maps.

[diddy]

Well the OP is false since - MapQuest is a subsidiary of AOL. I can't find any evidence of them owning or being owned by oil companies on AOL's side either
They did start off by selling Maps in gas stations (back in 1967) but thats about the only relationship I can find that indicates Oil company partnership in their early days. It sounds like the OP is thinking of MapQuest Gas Prices - a service they started last year.

[Natalie]

You'd think that a website owned by oil companies wouldn't need to have ads on it, especially if the oil companies were reaping some sort of benefit from owning said website. Anecdotally, I have not noticed Mapquest attempting to send me on routes that pass by gas stations - the route it always recommends to go downtown doesn't pass by or even near a single gas station, which is actually a PITA when I want a soda or need gas.

[lord_feldon]

Originally Posted by Natalie

You'd think that a website owned by oil companies wouldn't need to have ads on it, especially if the oil companies were reaping some sort of benefit from owning said website.

Why make some money when you can make more money?

[Natalie]

Originally Posted by lord_feldon

Why make some money when you can make more money?

Because I hate America. Duh.

[diddy]

Originally Posted by Natalie

You'd think that a website owned by oil companies wouldn't need to have ads on it, especially if the oil companies were reaping some sort of benefit from owning said website.

Well if you really want to think about it:
1) They want to make more money (as stated before)
2) They don't want mapquest to look like an "oil company run website" and deliberately post ads to cover a free site...

[WildaBeast]

I don't know about Mapquest, but Google Maps seems to want me to spend hours sitting in traffic. Several months ago I used it to get directions to a location in Mountian View, CA. On the way the it sent me south down 680, west on some other smaller highways, and then a short distance north on 101 -- in other words around the southern tip of The Bay. But for some reason when I asked it for reverse directions it told me to take 101 north to San Francisco and then take I-80 across the Bay Bridge.

I really should have known better than to follow those directions (there's a reason I always take BART when I go to San Francisco, after all), but I thought maybe traffic wouldn't be that bad on a Saturday night. Nope. As soon as I hit San Francisco traffic slowed to a crawl and stayed that way until I got to the bridge. Ironically, Google's route sent me past this Yahoo billboard, which I had plenty of time to look at while I was sitting in traffic cursing myself for following Google Maps. It also sent me past an In-N-Out Burger, but I already had a thread about that.

Originally Posted by lord_feldon

Let's do an experiment, then.

Kennedy Airport to LAX

Google: 2829 miles

Rand McNally: 2839 miles

Mapquest: 2833 miles

Yahoo: 2820 miles

It's Rand McNally that's the evil one. They want you to have to buy more maps.

They're all evil. With a GPS the REAL fastest way from LAX to JFK would be:

LOOP4 departure, direct LENDY, LENDY5 arrival.

All courtesy of GPS and its lack of navigational aid mileage usage limitations.

[Cactus Wren]

Actually, Mapquest's routing is based on the idea that there's nothing more terrifying than leaving the Interstate Highway System. As I discovered when my housemate and I drove up to visit her sister near Boise. We wanted to stop in Las Vegas:

Las Vegas, Nevada to Boise, Idaho -- by way of Salt Lake City. If you want a shorter trip, you have to ask for two separate routes: Vegas to Elko, and Elko to Boise.

[Mr. Plow]

But you save a whole 6 minutes ... by driving an extra 95 miles!

[Troberg]

They're all evil. With a GPS the REAL fastest way from LAX to JFK would be:

LOOP4 departure, direct LENDY, LENDY5 arrival.

All courtesy of GPS and its lack of navigational aid mileage usage limitations.

Actually, you are not so far from what's going to happen soon. One of the big rages in ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems) today is "multimodal navigation", and it's exactly what you are talking about. Currently, it's mostly for the big cities, where it makes more sense to suggest a route such as: "Drive to the big parking lot near the commuter train and park there. Walk to the station. Take the train to station X. Switch to subway Y and ride it to station Z. Walk to street W." (of course fleshed out with more directions). There's a lot of money in projects that will fuse navigation directions featuring walking, bikes, cars, bus, train, subway, air travel, taxi and so on.

There are several big projects going on to make implementations of this, and lots of money behind them.

Originally Posted by Cactus Wren

Actually, Mapquest's routing is based on the idea that there's nothing more terrifying than leaving the Interstate Highway System. As I discovered when my housemate and I drove up to visit her sister near Boise. We wanted to stop in Las Vegas:

Las Vegas, Nevada to Boise, Idaho -- by way of Salt Lake City. If you want a shorter trip, you have to ask for two separate routes: Vegas to Elko, and Elko to Boise.

I took the non interstate route route from Seattle to Las Vegas. Probably one of the most scariest drives I ever drove. I encourage anyone who wishes to drive through Nevada. Please don't.