A French court has ruled that Google's free Google Maps application API
is anti-competitive and has ordered the company to pay €500,000 to
Bottin Cartographes, a for-pay map company, as well as a €15,000 fine.

http://boingboing.net/2012/02/02/fre...-that-its.html

As the above article mentions, what happens when OpenStreetMap produces
the same kind of free maps?

-wolfgang
--
g+: https://plus.google.com/114566345864337108516/about

On Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:34:29 -0800, Wolfgang S. Rupprecht wrote:
>
> A French court has ruled that Google's free Google Maps application API
> is anti-competitive and has ordered the company to pay ???500,000 to
> Bottin Cartographes, a for-pay map company, as well as a ???15,000 fine.
>
> http://boingboing.net/2012/02/02/fre...-that-its.html
>
> As the above article mentions, what happens when OpenStreetMap produces
> the same kind of free maps?

It too will be anti-competitive, and have judgment won against it.
Guaranteed profits and price-fixing are the *essense* of competition in
France.

--
Advocacy leads to disagreement; disagreement leads to Holy Wars; Holy
Wars lead to suffering. Advocacy is the first step on the road to the
kill-file.
-- Joe Zeff in the Monastery

On 2012-02-02 12:34 , Wolfgang S. Rupprecht wrote:
>
> A French court has ruled that Google's free Google Maps application API
> is anti-competitive and has ordered the company to pay €500,000 to
> Bottin Cartographes, a for-pay map company, as well as a €15,000 fine.
>
> http://boingboing.net/2012/02/02/fre...-that-its.html

Google will appeal (as it says in the article). Google make cash off
the advertising and they only need to show that their model works and is
an alternate form of capitalism that they excel at and that Bottin
Cartographiques are non-competitive because they are still in 1970.

--
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).

On Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:34:29 -0800, Wolfgang S. Rupprecht wrote:

> A French court has ruled that Google's free Google Maps application API
> is anti-competitive and has ordered the company to pay €500,000 to
> Bottin Cartographes, a for-pay map company, as well as a €15,000
> fine.
>
> http://boingboing.net/2012/02/02/fre...-that-its.html
>
> As the above article mentions, what happens when OpenStreetMap produces
> the same kind of free maps?
>
> -wolfgang


Wasn't the reason given that Google give the data away for free then in a
few years start charging for it as they are doing for use of the map api
now, and in the mean time the competition has been closed down. Now if
the data was guaranteed to be free for ever there would not be a problem,

--
Ted Ferenc. (http://walks.ndrw.co.uk http://ndrw.co.uk)