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French court fines Google France 500,000 Euros for gratis Maps By Andrew Munchbach posted Feb 2nd 2012 12:22AM A Parisian commercial court has upheld a lower court's ruling against Google France, ordering the company to pay a fine of €500,000 for giving away its maps services. The plaintiff, Bottin Cartographes, claims that Google leveraged the market share of its Maps platform -- and the fact that it's free -- to undercut and stifle competition attempting to sell their topographical wares. "We proved the illegality of [Google's] strategy," said Bottin's counsel, noting that this was the first time Google has been convicted of malfeasance for this particular piece of software in the country. A representative from the search giant said it plans to appeal the decision, and reiterated the company's belief that competition exists in the space. Personally, we think the court got it right. Why should people get an awesome product for free when they can pay for an inferior one, right?

Do they honestly think they'll win ...

I lol'd. x'D

This exposes the ludicrous nature of the antipiracy belief system, because the argument is fundamentally the same. Here google created a free function that works for the company (helping to promote Google as a whole), and these French cartographical companies, believing that they can't compete with free, went and bitched to the government.

Google showed the service can be made free and effective, and established companies dislike it, so they cheat.

So they realized there is no way they can compete so they sue. This is whats wrong with Ameri... I mean France.


No but really I didn't even realize map makers still exist. The mass market no longer really needs them.

I cannot fathom why this is somehow legal.

There were free maps before Google. Google just did it better and being part of their very popular search, made it #1. Then adding it with voice navigation to their Android phones continued that trend.

I hope Google buys this company that sued them and shuts it down.

When it comes to corporate lawsuits, I typically find EU more illogical. 

In America it is about stupid individuals who sue others or companies over random things....and sometimes win. 

I am completely against the suit, however I don't believe that traditional map-makers should stop making maps. Even though it hasn't happened yet, there may come a time where we will have to revert back to using those fold-up maps.

I wouldn't want society to be completely dependent on electronic mapping means that we will just get lost if we don't have it.

there is comition no? Bing has maps, mapquest too. Many phone servics have map programs. I hope this gets overturned

They should block access in France instead of paying.

And also get them to fine Microsoft maps which do the same.