Some Google with your gas?
NEW YORK - Motorists filling up their gas tanks will soon be able to find a place to stop for lunch or get printed directions to Grandma's using a Google Inc. search tool installed on pumps made by Gilbarco Veeder-Root.
The Internet-based service will deliver local business listings and maps to the display screens of Gilbarco's gasoline pumps, the Greensboro, N.C., company said yesterday. Gilbarco, the biggest maker of gas pumps, already sells systems that display coupons and ads for local businesses.
As retail chains open their own gas stations, creating new competition for the stores that use Gilbarco's pumps, the company is looking for ways to help its clients retain customer loyalty, spokeswoman Lucy Sackett said in a telephone interview. The service will begin testing at 3,600 stations across the United States next month, she said.
Megan Quinn, a spokeswoman for Mountain View, Calif.,-based Google, said the company wasn't disclosing the terms of the arrangement with Gilbarco, a unit of Washington, D.C.-based Danaher Corp., the maker of Craftsman tools. Danaher shares fell $1.81, or 2.1 percent, to $82.85. 