French Court Fails Digital Economics; Claims Free Google Maps Is Illegal
from the yeah,-google's-going-to-jack-up-the-price? dept
Three years ago, we wrote about Bottin Cartographes, a French mapping company, suing Google because Google offers its Google Maps product (mostly) for free. Bottin argued that this was unfair competition, and suggested that it was a version of dumping -- whereby Google was giving away the product to intentionally wipe out the competition, at which point it would raise prices. Amazingly, an economically clueless French court has now agreed, and told Google to pay a fine and damages for its nefarious practice of giving away a product "for free." This is, to put it mildly, ridiculous. Is there any example of Google first wiping out all competition in a market with a free product... and then suddenly jacking up its prices? Yes, Google recently started charging for those who uses its mapping API a lot, but there's nothing, whatsoever, to suggest that the use of free here is somehow an anti-competitive move, rather than just a recognition of a wider strategy. In the meantime, if Google offering free maps in France is somehow illegal, you have to wonder what they think of a project like OpenStreetMap?
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Filed Under: antitrust, competition, france, free, maps
Companies: bottin cartographes, google
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If everyone did everything for free, society might collapse because everyone would be equal!
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If I was Google...
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So...
If they win the appeal, they should then pull Google Maps from France and put up the reasons why.
Then watch as people bitch that Google's acting like a spoiled brat.
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Just 98.75% of the time.
Once in awhile they get things right.
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In French:
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/21483-google-condamne-en-france-une-tres-bonne-decision.ht ml
Actually, Google has been fined because Google Search has a monopole in France and because Google Maps is too much promoted by Google Search, therefore creating an unfair advantage. Gratuity enters the equation, because with its research monopole and the ads money, Google can make Google Maps free and, once again, has another "unfair" advantage.
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Re: Monopolies
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Re: Re: Monopolies
Erm, what? The list price of XP Pro was $299 ($199 upgrade). The list price of Windows 7 is exactly the same, 10 years later, with many ways to get extra discounts.
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You can compete, it just takes more effort. The company just succeed in making a fool of itself and the French courts have just succeed in making yet another fail of themselves.
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I should clarify that boosting their own maps in the results could be a bad thing but can they return location results on the French company maps? I mean, is it a matter of PROMOTING their service if you look for maps or use their own maps to point out location searches?
Bing has its own maps too, I take it the company is suing Microsoft too?
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I have no clue what you meant by this ;)
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so Google advertises one of it's products using a different one of it's products, both in arenas where it does not, in fact, have a monopoly?
there are other search engines.
there are other sources for maps.
it's the Internet.
now, they may be the only company bothering to do searches In French (... and seriously, if your solution to that is to make the situation such that they would want to stop doing so, you've got problems), but that's not the same thing as being the only search engine available In France. (well, unless Microsoft etc have decided to be incredibly stupid and cut off their service there when i wasn't looking, which seems unlikely.)
so, yeah, i can see the point that some of the details in the article may be wrong... but the situation isn't any less stupid for it.
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Is it positive or negative?
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...And oh, the unintended consequences...
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Yea, and Yahoo Maps are promoted by Yahoo Search, Bing maps by Bing, etc., ad infinitum. So what? Google is bigger and more popular, therefore richer, so let's just sue them.
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So, what's the court's opinion on the numerous other competitors Google has in this arena, including many that are directly promoted by competing search engines?
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The court considers this situation intolerable, but any particular way of "improving" it will probably be unsatisfactory if it doesn't work and illegal if it does.
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Oh stop, you're killing me...
"I can't compete!"
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but
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Textbook exmple of dumping
OSM is and will always be free (as in freedom, not only in price) while Google offered their service for free only to break competition and dominate the market, and are now charging for it, that is a textbook example of dumping.
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Re: Textbook exmple of dumping
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Re: Textbook exmple of dumping
Hey I'm all for supporting the little guy but if Google's product is superior, regardless of the price, and consumers are being well served I fail to see the problem.
Additionally Bing and even MapQuest are still in use (can't speak for use in France so my point may be bunk) so Google Maps has competition.
Maybe some smaller, traditional map makers may be failing but that's due to the change in technology. Evolve or die. To me this case is no different than the old guard media companies complaining about how the Internet is destroying (really just changing) their market.
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Re: Textbook exmple of dumping
Since when has Google MADE you pay for their services?
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on another note: and yet another industry complaining about having to compete. wonder which industry will be next?
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... or something.
On a more serious note I wonder how gas stations will cope in an ever more plugged-in world. Will they too start suing electric/hybrid car manufacturers and charging stations left and right?
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You got it wrong
The French court has not sentenced Google for offering a free product. It is actually a very subtle judgement that is quite hard to explain but let me try.
The judge said that Google made an unfair use of its highly dominant position (90 % of the search market in France) to crush competition, and that it could not have offered its Google Maps API for free if it was not because of how it planned on using the information on the very markets it has a highly dominant position upon (search and online ads).
OpenStreetMaps is perfecly ok, because it does not use a dominant position on a market to crush competition on another market.
Google Maps would have been ok, if it was not so tightly tied to the entire Google services. For instance, when searching for "plumbers in Paris", Google Maps competitors are 900 pixels below the top of the page, which is all dedicated to Google services. In France, where Google has 90 % of the search market, it is viewed as an abuse of its position.
French readers can read my comments here :
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/21483-google-condamne-en-france-une-tres-bonne-decision.html
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Re: You got it wrong
Not offer a map service in France?
People in France would complain (someone would likely sue Google over this too) about the fact that every OTHER country gets a Google Maps service, but not them.
Google's in a catch-22 here.
Damned if you do (putting the maps up for free), damned if you don't (don't let people see the maps)
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Oh the mapanity!
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I can see how Techdirt got that one wrong...
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Google's success is search is their real problem for other businesses, as it gives them too much of an advantage already in visibility. Add in using their cash rich coffers to support otherwise unworkable business models, and you can see how the French courts got it right.
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Re: Re: Re: You got it wrong
Google's dominance can get people to try their products first, but they don't force them to use inferior solutions if they don't wish.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars
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Essentially, you are saying that Google is being punished for being successful. If they only had 30% of the search market, everything would have been fine, right? So it's all Google's fault for being a good search engine! It all makes sense, Google just needs to degrade their quality, thank you France for clearing that up for us!
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Would anyone be complaining if Google Maps didn't exist as a separate product, but was just a "type of Google search?"
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A: Yes.
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2. You seem to assume that Google pushes its Map results to the top artificially. Have you considered that this may be the natural ranking for those results based on user feedback of relevancy? If users find google maps results most useful, why should google display anything different?
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""Yes, Google recently started charging for those who uses its mapping API a lot, but there's nothing, whatsoever, to suggest that the use of free here is somehow an anti-competitive move, rather than just a recognition of a wider strategy.""
so they pushed it to somehow make it a standard, then start charging, sounds like dumping and unfair practices, which you admit to, but don't accept, the court accpeted it
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OT: Leaked IFPI letter to the European parliament calls the protests against ACTA "attempts to silence the democratic process"
A lobbying letter, attributed to the IFPI, the international arm of of the recorded music industry, and circulated by a coalition of rights-holders, attempts to wear the mantle of the moral high-ground in Europe�s political battle over ACTA. This wolf in sheep�s clothing also appears to have access to documents which have been denied to civil society.
The letter, leaked to IP-Watch, is signed by a range of rights-holder lobbying groups, including the European Publishers Council, the British Video Association, the Dutch collecting society BREIN, GESAC, IRMA, and the BPI. The European Publishers Association has the distinction of having James Murdoch, son of Rupert, on its board. It is being sent to members of the European Parliament, as well as to Ministers in national governments. It is believed that IFPI authored the letter.
The letter accuses the citizens protests of �silencing the democratic process�.
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What Google does with Maps (and many of it's other services) is that it gives them away for nothing (aka dumping) without any expectation of direct return. Google Maps, as a stand alone business, would never exist. Without another very profitable business (advertising), Google could not offer the services.
It is only recently that Google has started to put ads on the MAPS product... and even then, they allow embedded use without ads.
What the French court is concerned about is that Google is using it's incredible dominant position in online advertising to finance attempts to take over other markets, pushing local incumbent companies out, and doing so by using their significant income from other businesses to finance this dumping of product.
It should be noted too that with it's dominant position in social media videos, Youtube has suddenly cranked up the advertising to a painful level (one video ad per 3 videos on average, a lower third ad on pretty much every video, and at least 1 sometimes two ads in the related video column). It is clear from this angle that Google may intend to use the free product dumping to wipe out competition, and then turn around a coat it over with advertising to make money back.
In many countries, this sort of product or service dumping is illegal, considered "disloyal competition" or something similar.
I would say Mike that this is a case where you need to block off the American part of your brain and accept that other countries work under different legal and business systems.
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"Is there ever a valid case of unfair competition? If so, under what conditions would I admit that some behavior constituted unfair competition?"
So far, I haven't seen anyone here who is deriding the french court's ruling explain :
how, if it were in fact the case that Google used its overwhelmingly dominant position in the search-engine market to unduly suppress the ranking and appearance of others--they, being competitors in certain so-called "free" "services" "offered" by Google --that this would not or should not constitute an unfair business practice (in the above, certain words appear in quotation marks to indicate their truly absurd character when applied in their ususal ordinary everyday sense to the world of Google-opoly);
or how we're supposed to know that the page ranks just happen to fall out that way---just trust the very kind, generous and eminently fair people at the multibillion-dollar industry which is Google, and which happens to make a fabulously rich living by determining the search-results order for millions upon millions of individual's searches--often (always, isn't it?) in ways that directly influence Google's bottom-line.
The case turns upon issues of market dominance and unfair--think "abusive" ---use of market position.
Can anyone explain these other than by resorting to cute "cheese-eating surrender monkey" comments?
P.S., by the way, that phrase became infamous at the run-up to Bush/Cheney's war on Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Recall, that the french people and govt. of the time tried to tell the U.S. govt and people that this venture was a very bad (and unnecessary) idea. How'd that war work out for you?
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Have you considered that Google's dominant position in the market is the result of offering a great service that people want? Why should they change that service, to the public's detriment, to appease a few whiny competitors?
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I'm in the public; and I'm complaining. Though I expect you'll say next, "Weel, gee, there just aren't enough like you!"
I know that already--just as I know that if American society weren't so overwhelmingly composed of ignorant, complacent morons, there'd be more chance it should occur to more Americans that they're being routinely played for incredibly gullible suckers. But, there you are. Many people don't bother to think much and among Americans, the entire culture favors the growth of thoughtless, careless, clueless stupidity.
The profits in the cultivation of idiotocracy are truly staggering and so stupid is all the rage. Elsewhere, where mass-media haven't yet completely succombed to such prevasive influence over the public second-nature (un)thought processes, it's different and there, "people" complain.
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Emphasis mine.
Why can't the same be applied to copyright? (Yeah, I know this article isn't about copyright, but that's never stopped the shills from calling Mike a piracy apologist regardless of what the article says.)
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Candlemaker's Petition
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can't have that
I think that's the reason Google gained its power when it did. It provided a service that wasn't utter horrible shit.
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That's why everybody is ignoring all the pay-for online games and playing Minesweeper and Solitaire. Microsoft has single-handedly wiped out the entire computer games industry.
Speaking of maps, this n�vi that appeared on my dashboard last month? Ignore it, it can't possibly exist, because I already have Google Maps (with turn-by-turn navigation assist) on my Google Phone. And as we all know, you can't compete with free.
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lol
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Marriage is endangered here!
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me: rainbow warrior....
france: i will shut up now...
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Sigh
Take note US courts and judges and businesses, next time if a French company become as successful as Google in the US, you know what to do.
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