Groundspeak Portal

It's so nice of large companies to allow us to use their copyrighted logos for waymarking icons at no cost to us... but, what about a cost to them?

Seriously, do we set up waymarks for major corporations and not charge a fee?

So, McDonald's, Taco Bell, and others get free advertising on this site.

I'm thinking there is a potential of revenue for this site that is being squandered... or I could be completely wrong.

What Groundspeak does as a business entity should  not be any of our concern. If they get revenue from the commercial entity I don't care nor should I care... I still hate chain categories.

I dont think it's advertising. The same can be said about other categories. USPS post offices? US National Parks? Those could be seen as advertising too.

Promoting locations, whether commercial or not-for-profit in scope, is not quite what is being done here.  Yes there is a commercial aspect in Waymarking that is forbidden in other GPS games by Groundspeak but the purpose of exploring any Category is that you have an interest in the content.

Often I go for the Waymark, and leave with much more than an icon.  To say that it cost me $75 to enter Walt Disney World to claim the Visit or $4.99 for a Big Mac combo is really not the best way to think of it.

Spending $10 per person to go to a local Racetrack (there is one Waymarked here) for the family then documenting our experience is my focus, not that the track got $30 out of my pocket due to some free advertising that they didn't even ask for.  Sometimes I am surprised that some commercial ventures haven't latched onto Waymarking and populated some of the existing Categories since they would have most of the data already.  Like you say, free advertising and it might actually bring in customers.  And me, I'm all for that too cause it will give me more places to go!

BQ