PARIS — A French commercial court has found Google guilty of abusing the dominant position of its Google Maps application and ordered it to pay a fine and damages to a French mapping company.
In a ruling Tuesday, the Paris court upheld an unfair competition complaint lodged by Bottin Cartographes against Google France and its parent company Google Inc. for providing free web mapping services to some businesses.
The court ordered Google to pay 500,000 euros ($660,000) in damages and interest to the plaintiff and a 15,000 euro fine.
The French company provides the same services for a fee and claimed the Google strategy was aimed at undercutting competitors by temporarily swallowing the full cost until it gains control of the market.This court made such an incredibly stupid decision it almost seems like satire. It's the buggy whip maker suing oil company.
The problem is that the an old fashioned map business is far too inefficient to compete with instant, customized map services available from many online sources. Payments for these newer services are covered by new models that don't include the end user paying a direct fee. Google isn't engaging in unfair competition; it is simply a winner in the map business competition.
You can't even GIVE your services away these days. Sounds like something from the book Atlas Shrugged.
Posted by: Atticus Finch | February 06, 2012 at 07:48 AM