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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."
Why would it?
Microsoft was punished for pumping a market with a free product, with its development supported by revenues from a monopoly product, so that they could afford to give it away where competitors could not. If Google offers something for free, kills off its competitors who were charging for their version, and then starts charging when they're the only ones left, then the French court has a point.
Even the headline in the linked article is absurd: "French court protectionism fines Google Maps for succeeding". No, that's not what they were fined for. They were fined for what French competitor Bottin claimed would happen two years ago--Google would offer Maps for free, make their competitors go bankrupt, and then start charging for Maps once they controlled the market. That's precisely what ended up happening!
Just sayin. France is being hypocritical.
Are they going to make all loss leaders illegal? Seems to me it works the same for everyone, regardless of the industry.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
For as long as I can remember, it was a paid service unless you where going to use under a given number of hits per month (and it was not a large number last time I checked). That let people play with it, but any serious work required a license.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
As somebody working on the remote sensing/mapping/gis field for 10+ years. I tend to agree.
It's a long debate, but clearly the new concept of "paid api" it's confusing.
I perceived gmaps as a free tool in the beginning, but now, as they charge, it's no longer a tool, but a competitor.
Many hi definition data available "freely" on google maps/google earth, it's the result of a private customer paying for that data, and the by some weird agreement between the companies that run the satellites and google, the information ended up "FREE" on google maps.
A real life story:
I paid 250+K for 1 meter imagery (ikonos) for a project that was covered in google maps using old 30m imagery (90's landsat). Months later google has the 1m coverage i ordered and paid for, available for FREE to anyone else.
So i'm not only competing against google, but against people who no longer needs to order a quality work, since now it's there FREE.
Duh! That's certainly UNFAIR.
Their monopoly is protected by IP law. The solution is simple and obvious.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Just put ads around or in maps. Broadcast TV is free because it's ad supported. Or, does France ban that too?
Table-ized A.I.
I'm with ya on most of your points, but you act like pro-Linux news is a bad thing.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Duh! That's certainly UNFAIR.
If you meant that a huge publicly traded company under enormous scrutiny somehow directly or through arrangements with other people violeted contracts to which you were a party, then, sure. But you don't seem to be saying that. You seem to be saying that the marketplace has changed, and that you wish it hadn't.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Similar example: The EU sells cheap food (subsidised exports) in developing African countries, forcing local farmers out of business. That is clearly unethical.
In the map service case it's not unethical (a map service is not critical to ones survival), but of course it isn't "fair" to kill a market with a free but closed and proprietary product (free as in subsidised by the manufacturer with money made elsewhere).
If you want a really free map source, try openstreetmap.org & some of the apps which use their maps. Still a work in progress, but much improved over even a year ago. If every geek on /. cleaned up their neighborhood map it would be better than the paid maps - I've certainly added features like weird one way streets and things around me which don't show up on commercial maps.
If so, why wasn't mapquest a monolopy? I think yahoo maps were also around before google maps? Why wasn't yahoo fined?
See Google Maps lures in unsuspecting users, whose eye balls are then sold to advertisers. Now these eye balls are not sold for free by any means.
Your right, it's not all about market share. It's about being able to control the market, and abusing that control.
I certainly have a choice to not use google maps, or google search. I can easily switch from google maps, to yahoo maps, or to mapquest; it takes seconds. Absoluty nothing ties me to google.
This is not true with OSes. If I switch from windows, to linux, I will not be able to run my applications. OS makers have much more potential than search engines, to abuse their monopoly positions.
... keep in mind that Google started charging for use of its mapping API once the free version had come to dominate the market.
I'm not really seeing the problem here.
Seriously, search for yourself. Many of the google smears, that slashdot loves so much, come from extremely dubioius sources (anti-google bloggers); but slashdot publishes them anyway, as if they were real news.
Sorry if slashdot does not smear google enough for you, but really I think enough is enough.
Google should just immediately start charging everyone in France for access to Maps. If their government wants to play these kinds of protectionist games- give them what they want...
If something is supported by advertisements, is it "free?"
Other free map services were around for years before google maps. Why weren't they monopolies?
Google may be dominate, but that does tie anybody to google. I can easily switch to another free map service.
I think you know that. But you are clearly an MS shill, so I won't try to argue with you.
After all, they're undercutting pay-to-view outlets like HBO, Cinemax, etc.
This seems to me the real analogy. The traditional broadcast networks get their revenue from advertising, like Google, and their product available to the end-user free-of-charge. HBO gets its revenue from the end-user directly.
I don't think anyone would make the argument CBS is unfairly subsidizing their product and I don't think Google is either even if the temporary market condition is such that Google is most popular.
>This might seem ridiculous, but keep in mind
replace "but" with "because"
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
A French company called Maporama was producing free maps before Google Maps ever turned up. It was like Mapquest for non US destinations and pretty decent for it too. The innovation Google brought to maps was you could interactively drag them around rather than the clumsy d-pad style controls that most map sites including Maporama used. So I don't really buy the idea that free was anticompetitive because it was entering a market where free was the precedent already.
bonch is mad that his submissions were not accepted.
The fact that ACs are posting those same submissions in stories with a bonch first post are, of course, entirely coincidental.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Where I to still have mod points I'd try to get rid of the troll score. You make some valid points. I do wish folks would stop with the "I know I'll be modded down" statements though, it is self serving. Modded up or down, speak your peace and don't tell the world what it may do.
I've been with /. since the mid 90's (skulker at first, joined later) and I do see a trend of less open discourse, more childish rantings, and news that does seem skewed. With that said, it still has good comments I can learn from, it still tends to have more thoughtful comments then other places, and generally the mod system works (see point above).
As to the topic on hand, I agree fully that Google's actions are not in line with their original foundation. This is what happens in the life cycle of business. A great book I read years ago was Titled "From barbarian to Bureaucracy", which talked about the process of business from innovation to fossilized monolith. Once Finance becomes the controlling interest of a company the origins are swept away.
What's started to concern me is that within the tech realm, three companies have reached a point where they are the controlling factor for information access and dissemination. Google, Twitter, and Facebook. While they may be minor offshoots, these three control a massive majority of personal data, communication, and information. We now see Google and Twitter complying with countries to limit access to information. Was there a point they might have said "go suck it"? Now its about money and since governments are all about money, control, and power, can we trust one company to search, to twit, or to organize?
The argument may be that the market will adjust. If Google gets to evil, if it gets to chummy with governments people will go to another search engine or map function....yet where are they? The one attempt to Open Source Facebook is a failure due to social inertia and I would suspect that Google's recent now you pay approach is based on the basic fact that they hit market saturation. So let me go one step further and consider that the World Wide Web (www) is no longer what was originally imagined, but has become a tool for manipulation of societies by government and corporate interests and not the other way around. Innovation, that which created Google, Facebook, and twitter is either dead or dying. Smothered by patent law, IP overkill, and simple greed.
Well, have a good day.
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
Is it illegal?
Let's see which markets it has cornered:
education, law enforcement, price of money...
Oooh, but Microsoft bundled a browser!
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Pretty sure Map Quest predates Google... I recall using their "free" service years ago.
" The Google+ search results fiasco is huge all over the tech sites right now,"
The whole issue is stupid. Google has stated that those other companies refused to open up their data to Google, so Google can't integrate with the other sites. Well, Google does have access to G+ data, so they use it
I've found G+ search quite useful for helping me find stuff.
btw, were you aware that web search was free (= funded by ads) for a decade before google?
No I wasn't. I was under the impression that WebCrawler, the first publicly accessible full-text World Wide Web search engine, predated Google by only four and a half years.
Companies should be forced to sell their services for at the amount of money they need to provide it. While the Google search engine could be free for searches it has has to cost for the advertisers (which it does). However, with the same logic the map service could be free for watchers if other people have to pay for their location. For email it is you data you provide (pay) so that should not be a problem.
If Microsoft wins its case against Barnes and Noble over the Android patents, watch the ITC block imports of mobile Linux devices.
You are basically right. Google is practically using a classical dumping strategy here. Well, almost, when the product or service is dumped there usually is a certain price tag but considerably lower price than that of the competitors. Now the price is zero.
The end product is offered for free for consumers although Google certainly has expenses on the map service. This is therefore unfair competion and the end result will be monopoly. On the other hand Google also has an advantage in its service that it may couple advertising into it as well as other free and non-free services.
So, is the unfairness in price or in that the product or service is better than the competitor's products or service?
My friends, stop the brain f**king. They all decided everything on hahaped.
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INAL, but;
Giving away free content/service/etc to put competitors out of business and then charging once you have a monopoly is fairly common. And its not allowed. Its not allowed in the U.S. It is an illegal practice banned under the monopolies law; and it has been banned for like 135yrs.
Proving someone has done this, in common law U.S. Well, that's another story entirely. Proving it in France? Well there system is a little different, they can concentrate on effects of acts more and spend less time divining intent. France, is the right place to bring this complaint.