[deleted]
France convicts Google Maps for unfair competition
31–40 of 160 posts
Re: France convicts Google Maps for unfair competition
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think that in a market for a service which is very expensive to provide, one participant offering that service for free will encourage competition, or will it drive the others out of business? If you agree that it will drive them out of business, then you agree that offering the service for free is anticompetitive. The situation here is more complicated than that, and not all anticompetitive action is not ille…
(deleted my OP due to people using the down arrow for "disagree") >Do you think that in a market for a service which is very expensive to provide, one participant offering that service for free will encourage competition, or will it drive the others out of business? I'm sorry but I'm finding it very hard to justify the government stepping in and saying "Nuh-uh, you're not charging enough". If this was a case of preda…
This isn't a free service, though; this is a temporarily-free version of their Enterprise API, which they plan to charge (a lot) for later. I.e. they precisely are trying to drive everyone out of business before jacking the price up.
Re: France convicts Google Maps for unfair competition
#33Some people should actually read the court arguments before post,
the French court didn't just applied the fine, it was based on Google acts: when all other competitors dies google will start charging... with low price rates. is it fair?
I don't think so.
Re: France convicts Google Maps for unfair competition
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
(deleted my OP due to people using the down arrow for "disagree") >Do you think that in a market for a service which is very expensive to provide, one participant offering that service for free will encourage competition, or will it drive the others out of business? I'm sorry but I'm finding it very hard to justify the government stepping in and saying "Nuh-uh, you're not charging enough". If this was a case of preda…
This isn't a free service, though; this is a temporarily-free version of their Enterprise API, which they plan to charge (a lot) for later. I.e. they precisely are trying to drive everyone out of business before jacking the price up.
That's only the allegation by the cartographer company, it's not proven, and it really reeks of thought crime. (How can you be sued for something you "plan" to do with no proof of such a plan?)
And as the article says, that is NOT like Google at all.
And another thing, is that the service who is doing the whining here is quite objectively crap, compared to google maps.
Re: France convicts Google Maps for unfair competition
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't a free service, though; this is a temporarily-free version of their Enterprise API, which they plan to charge (a lot) for later. I.e. they precisely are trying to drive everyone out of business before jacking the price up.
That's only the allegation by the cartographer company, it's not proven, and it really reeks of thought crime. (How can you be sued for something you "plan" to do with no proof of such a plan?) And as the article says, that is NOT like Google at all. And another thing, is that the service who is doing the whining here is quite objectively crap, compared to google maps.
Initially free services that later have the prices jacked up seems to be pretty in character for Google. See, e.g., App Engine and the translation API.
Re: France convicts Google Maps for unfair competition
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's only the allegation by the cartographer company, it's not proven, and it really reeks of thought crime. (How can you be sued for something you "plan" to do with no proof of such a plan?) And as the article says, that is NOT like Google at all. And another thing, is that the service who is doing the whining here is quite objectively crap, compared to google maps.
Initially free services that later have the prices jacked up seems to be pretty in character for Google. See, e.g., App Engine and the translation API.
App engine is still free (though with lower limits), and the translation API is $20 per million characters.
That's hardly predatory pricing, and doesn't have anything to due with the fact that they were just sanctioned for something they hadn't done yet.
Re: France convicts Google Maps for unfair competition
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK so lets shut down Wikipedia next.
As soon as they start charging for access. See, this is the problem with deceptive headlines, they make people argue points that don't exist.
So what if I have a company that sells information and Wikipedia ruins my business by offering information for free?
Edit: even if Wikipedia is non-profit, what if their secret main sponsor is some news outlet, for example?
Re: France convicts Google Maps for unfair competition
#38[deleted]
Europe has loads of nice things. You should visit sometime. This ruling, presumably, is about a big company subsidising its unprofitable mapping business with another part of its business until the small fish die.
But that's how all of Google works. It subsidizes everything it does with it's advertising business.
Re: France convicts Google Maps for unfair competition
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK so lets shut down Wikipedia next.
Well, either you did not understand the comment you are replying to, or you believe that Wikipedia will charge for its access. What does make you think such a thing ?
So Google is only made to pay because they have a paid version of Maps? If Maps were completely free, they would be good?
Who guarantees that Wikipedia never starts charging, as soon as all other information services have been pushed out of the market?
Sorry but yes maybe I missed some tidbit in the article?
Re: France convicts Google Maps for unfair competition
#40Reporter totally misses the point. The point is that google provided google maps for free. That is great. except when all other competition dies (because who can compete with a better, freer version of your product?) google starts charging pretty rediculous rates. That move in itself is what contributed to the ruling. OSM is free for everyone. It is a wiki. If OSM destroys google, bing, etc, and then decides to go on…
OK so lets shut down Wikipedia next.
There is a difference. Wikipedia and many open source projects cannot forcibly switch to paid model, because they are currently giving their content away under CC-BY or GPL and you can keep a copy of it. If they started charging, you can fork the project and continue charge-free.
Google maps API is a service controlled by Google. You cannot replicate it and keep using it if Google changes its mind about the licensing.