According to a story at bbc.com, beginning January 1, 2012 Google will charge for use of the Google Maps API. The BBC says that it is rumored that Google will charge $4/1000 views in excess of 25000/day.
bbc.co.uk/news/business-155230 ...

One of Google's pages on Google Maps Api indicates that there is currently both a free service and a paid premier service. These both seem to be different than what the BBC is reporting.
maps.google.com/help/maps/getm ...

slashdot coverage
search.slashdot.org/story/11/1 ...

0.35% of websites using this API = how many websites?