Is it expected that Google's map API would require a key once installed on live site?

I don't know what is different from running it locally within the provided python server vs my ASP.Net application, but once it is running in my ASP.Net application (even the test environment of localhost), I get an error from google saying that  I need an API key. I can certainly add one since it is free, but it doesn't seem like I should need one. 

Has anybody else run into this? 

Thanks
Greg
