French Court Calls Free Google Maps Unfair Competition

jfruh writes "A French court has ruled that Google is unfairly subsidizing its free mapping products, making for unfair competition with paid services. This might seem ridiculous, but keep in mind that Google started charging for use of its mapping API once the free version had come to dominate the market."

Comments

Re:This was predicted to happen two years ago

[countertrolling]

Fine, don't let them have the copyrights or patents that would allow them to control the market.

Re:G Maps

[bonch]

Market share is a percentage. How would it decrease if there aren't any competitors?

Re:This was predicted to happen two years ago

[s.petry]

Apples to Bananas comparison.

Microsoft took technology that already existed and people already used and paid for and gave it away free until the competition died out. (Word/Word Perfect Anti-trust suit ??). With Browser technology they forced Windows VARS to install IE and play by a set of rules that said no competitive products could be installed (initial Anti-trust suit) even if the customer requested it. When busted, they spit in the courts face and forced vendors by forcing vendors to only install old unsupported versions of the product (Anti-trust suit number 3).

Google Maps on the other hand was a new business. It became extremely popular, and is still FREE to use for anyone. Google started charging for the APIs (which were initially free) to connect to Google Map data, without the Google service.

How about you search the US DOJ and EU Courts for Anti-trust suites and compare again. While I'm not saying Google is innocent of everything they are accused of they are actually way better than the shitbags we know as Microsoft.