A shopper starts typing and picks their address from a list. Your own Google
key, your own quota; nothing goes through us.
WooCommerce’s own address inputs stay exactly where they are, underneath the
search box. If your key is missing, your referrer restriction bites, your
quota runs out, an ad blocker gets in the way, or Google has a bad
afternoon, the checkout works precisely as it did before this plugin was
installed. That is the one failure in this category that costs orders, and
it is avoided by never replacing anything.
Google has deprecated its old autocomplete widget in favour of
PlaceAutocompleteElement. This plugin uses the new element, so it ships
on the far side of that migration rather than needing a rewrite immediately.
Where the new element is not available it stands down, rather than falling
back to the thing Google is removing.
A Maps JavaScript key is handed to every shopper’s browser — that is how it
works, and there is nowhere to hide it. So the field is not masked. What
protects it is an HTTP-referrer restriction in Google’s own console, and the
settings screen says so right beside the field.
Gatemi Address Autocomplete for WooCommerce
is a separate plugin, sold on gatemi.com, that adds changing how Google’s
address parts map onto your checkout fields, pinning a Maps version or
region, and a filter that limits autocomplete to the shoppers a store names.
This plugin loads Google’s Maps JavaScript API in your shoppers’ browsers,
using your API key, so that they can search for their address. What is
sent is what they type into the search box. This happens only on pages with
an address form and only once you have entered a key.
Service: Google Maps Platform — https://developers.google.com/maps —
https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/terms —
https://policies.google.com/privacy
The plugin itself contacts nothing else — no gatemi.com, no analytics,
nothing.