They are not routes. They are pins connected by straight lines. The screenshot in the post doesn't reflect the reality of the service. Try clicking on NYC, Washington DC, Detroit and Boston and see the route. Prepare to do some swimming :-)
That's by design. From the FAQ:
> How come if I click on two points along a curvy road, the line doesn't follow the curvature of the road?
> Two reasons. First, Google doesn't provide an interface to the road data, so I have no way of knowing if you clicked on a road or not, nor do I know where the road twists and turns.
> Second, many people create routes that go off-road (e.g. to plot a hiking path). These people wouldn't want RouteBuilder to follow along a road anyway.
From the wording of the mail and of the ToS [1] I don't think that it would make any difference if he used the Google Directions API [2]. Actually, after reading that letter I wonder what developers can use that API for, if not for eventually getting that letter.
That's by design. From the FAQ:
> How come if I click on two points along a curvy road, the line doesn't follow the curvature of the road?
> Two reasons. First, Google doesn't provide an interface to the road data, so I have no way of knowing if you clicked on a road or not, nor do I know where the road twists and turns.
> Second, many people create routes that go off-road (e.g. to plot a hiking path). These people wouldn't want RouteBuilder to follow along a road anyway.
From the wording of the mail and of the ToS [1] I don't think that it would make any difference if he used the Google Directions API [2]. Actually, after reading that letter I wonder what developers can use that API for, if not for eventually getting that letter.
[1] https://developers.google.com/maps/terms#section_10_4
[2] https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/directions/...