Google has been found guilty of unfair competition in France and ordered to pay €500,000 or $660,000 in damages along with a €15,000, $19,675 fine. The court found that Google was abusing its dominating position in the market by giving away Google Maps for free.
Bottin Cartographes, a company that offers an online mapping service, was distressed that Google was able to do the same for free, while it had to charge for its services.
Naturally, Bottin Cartographes did what any other company would do in the same position, it went straight to the courts and complained that Google was being unfair and that it had no chance of competing with a free product.
The French company argued that Google was doing this as a tactic to drive out hard working companies that offered similar services but were forced to ask people to pay for them.
The court agreed with the French company.
French courts often agree with French companies. It ordered Google to pay damages as well as a fine. Google has said that it will appeal the decision and that it believes there is enough competition in the market.
To be fair, if indeed Google had been giving out Maps for free, at a loss, in order to drive out the competition, the court would have had every right to intervene.
There is one flaw in the argument though, Google Maps is making money, Google monetizes its product quite well and it's very unlikely that it operates at a loss.
And it's not just Google, Bing, Yahoo, Nokia and others are also offering mapping services, for free. They may not have Google's market share in France, but they're big competitors in other places.
If all of these companies can make money from online maps, not that all of them do, then, perhaps, it isn't impossible for a French company to do the same without the help of the court.
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