WPCentral reports that Nokia has now started showing advertisements to some of the Windows Phone users in its HERE Maps mapping application which is bundled free with all of the Windows Phone devices. This doesn’t seem like a welcome step as Nokia promotes Here Maps as a part of the phones and the cost of using the service should already be covered in the cost of the phone.
Pino Bonetti has also confirmed the introduction of advertisements over at the forums of WpCentral.
After rolling out advertisements (e.g. with Groupon) on here.com, we are introducing them on Windows Phone 8 apps too. In the specific case of HERE Maps, we are displaying locally relevant ads in search results and nearby places […] if you want to see what their offer is all about, you can click on the banner to open the browser.
The advertising is however pretty minimalistic and should not affect the user experience much or maybe it will even enhance the search listings by introducing some relevant paid suggestions, something which Google already does in its Maps.
It might be a a good way to collect revenue from the Maps, but the people who have paid a premium price for their handsets might be disappointed a bit as the service was introduced as fully free when the devices were revealed and the display of advertisements wasn’t mentioned.
