The rapid expansion of mobile Internet use has made the ability to collect contextual details like location for personalizing content almost a requirement for website owners. Users expect localized search results and regularly share details of their whereabouts with social sites from Instagram to Yelp. Many sites and services rely on Google Maps to provide interactive mapping features, but they may be changing.

Amazon may soon follow Apple’s (perhaps misguided) lead and oust Google Maps for its own mapping service. Google announced its new Amazon Maps API, which allows developers  to integrate mapping functionality into apps that run on Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD. Unlike Amazon’s abandoned A9 maps, the new mapping API isn’t using Amazon’s data.

Amazon has gotten some help from Nokia, who recently licensed its Nokia Location Platform to the company for mapping and geocoding. The Maps API appears to be little more than wrapper around Nokia’s service, which is also used by Yahoo Maps, Microsoft’s Bing Maps and photo sharing site Flickr. Amazon is promoting the new offering as “a simple migration path for developers who are already using the native Google Maps API on Android.” However, the initial version of Amazon Maps doesn’t appear to have any features, other than maybe pricing, that would entice a developer already using Google’s mapping tools to jump ship for a service that hasn’t yet made it out of beta.

Amazon has not said it is replacing Google Maps. It hasn’t even committed to offering a full, stand-alone mapping service, but there is a strong potential mapping will add to the list of Google technologies Amazon has snubbed. Google’s Android powers the Kindle Fire, but Amazon has heavily customized it. Amazon said “no, thank you” to Google’s Play download store for apps, music, video, ebooks, and other content. The company even rejected using Google’s search as a default and replaced it with Microsoft’s Bing.