Author Topic: Google must pay $660,000 for offering Google Maps for free (Read 92 times)

silicon_toad2000 · « **on:** February 05, 2012, 06:02:59 AM »

Quote

A Paris court earlier this week ordered Google France and its parent company Google to pay plaintiff Bottin Cartographes 500,000 euros (about $660,000) for providing its free mapping services to businesses across the country. The court also required Google to pay a 15,000 euro fine for its practice.

"We proved the illegality of (Google's) strategy to remove its competitors," Jean-David Scemmama, attorney for Bottin Cartographes, a company that provides mapping services to businesses, told the AFP in an interview earlier this week. "The court recognized the unfair and abusive character of the methods used, and allocated Bottin Cartographes all it claimed. This is the first time Google has been convicted for its Google Maps application."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-57370274-17/google-must-pay-$660000-for-offering-google-maps-for-free/?tag=cnetRiver

White Stripes · « **Reply #1 on:** February 05, 2012, 07:59:32 AM »

wha..... huh?? www.mapquest.com was around offering free maps when google was just a search engine...

france loosing map-selling-to-tourist money or something?

silicon_toad2000 · « **Reply #2 on:** February 05, 2012, 08:31:45 AM »

it's possible to do a lot of neat stuff with the google maps / google earth api

illeagle, pffft, it's a change in the structure of the industry and the scale of the players, just like there has been in most other industries.

cuttingedge · « **Reply #3 on:** February 05, 2012, 01:14:30 PM »

This is A huge blow! This changes things drasticly! Opening this kind of door is horrid for everyone......

*CE sheds many tears for the the thought of loosing Google Earth

In my line of work I use Google earth and Google maps daily to look at roofing projects to get an idea if the job is worth my time. Otherwise I have to spend lots of money and time going to these places to have a look!
Quick! everyone take as many Google earth screen shots you can and load them on the Yacy ship!
The Google ship is sinking fast captain! Aarrrg!

cuttingedge · « **Reply #4 on:** February 05, 2012, 01:21:00 PM »

Has anyone any idea what Google spends or has spent to sentd their photo cars around the world to give us street views of every road, house, corner, road sign, ect... in the world????? I bet A Billion... And gave it all to us like a christmas gift unselfishly.

Trestor · « **Reply #5 on:** February 05, 2012, 01:42:28 PM »

To me it's like Starbucks suing someone for loss of revenue for giving away free coffee. It's become a very strange world when someone says, "Hey, people shouldn't have free things; I'm trying to corner the market and make people pay me for what they get!", and get away with it.