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France convicts Google Maps for unfair competition

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Re: France convicts Google Maps for unfair competition

#41

Post by dasil003 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

One hand gives, the other hand takes. One minute we hear people complaining that Google Maps cost too much money (if you have heavy volume) and next we hear that Google Maps cost too little money. I don't know if Open Street Maps will be that successful in France though... If you plot the density of documentation in en.wikipedia on a map, you see a hole where France is... Germans, Dutch and English like to participat…

I don't think the people saying Google Maps is too expensive, and the people saying it's too cheap having anything at all to do with each other.

Re: France convicts Google Maps for unfair competition

#45

Post by ekianjo »

forgottenpaswrd wrote: post #21
dlikhten wrote: post #5

Reporter 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…

"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." This is what happened with big malls in Europe, small retailers could not compete in price so they got out of business. Now some of the malls have bigger prices that what small retailers had, as they have way less competition. E.g Carrefour bou…

Actually, this kind of law does not make any sense. In the case of carrefour, since they are charging such high prices nowadays, what prevents a bunch of farmers to associate themselves and open their own mall to sell cheaper and regain market share?

Nothing, absolutely nothing. They just can't be bothered.

Lack of competition is not only about big brands killing small ones. It's also part of the culture. It's been a long time that entrepreneurship is dead in France. I know what I'm talking about, I AM french.

Re: France convicts Google Maps for unfair competition

#46

Post by cooldeal »

Tichy wrote: post #39
uniclaude wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I think the big difference is that Google is using the money from it's monopoly search to artificially subsidize maps below cost. OSM and Wikipedia etc. are doing no such thing.

Re: France convicts Google Maps for unfair competition

#47

Post by babarock »

How come we assume that Google is going to start charging as soon as competitors died?

I draw analogies with the IE vs Netscape history. When IE became bundled for free in Windows, Netscape open-sourced its code to survive.

Where would the browser be today had a judge ruled that Microsoft cannot do this and that Microsoft (and Netscape) should continue charging for their product?

Re: France convicts Google Maps for unfair competition

#48

Post by kolinko »

ekianjo wrote: post #45
forgottenpaswrd wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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." This is what happened with big malls in Europe, small retailers could not compete in price so they got out of business. Now some of the malls have bigger prices that what small retailers had, as they have way less competition. E.g Carrefour bou…

Actually, this kind of law does not make any sense. In the case of carrefour, since they are charging such high prices nowadays, what prevents a bunch of farmers to associate themselves and open their own mall to sell cheaper and regain market share? Nothing, absolutely nothing. They just can't be bothered. Lack of competition is not only about big brands killing small ones. It's also part of the culture. It's been a…

Isn't this what game theory is about?

Smaller competitors won't open up, because even if Carrefour has high prices, the chain can lower prices any time to wipe out the competitors again.

So, the monopolist can have arbitrarily high prices because nobody will invest in opening shops.

This is one of the situations in which free market fails to deliver the optimal (for consumers) solution.

Re: France convicts Google Maps for unfair competition

#49

Post by icebraining »

Tichy wrote: post #39
uniclaude wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Who guarantees that Wikipedia never starts charging, as soon as all other information services have been pushed out of the market?

The fact that anyone can make an exact Wikipedia clone thanks to the free licensing of their software and content?

Re: France convicts Google Maps for unfair competition

#50

Post by kolinko »

DarenThomas wrote: post #7
PaulHoule wrote: post #2

One hand gives, the other hand takes. One minute we hear people complaining that Google Maps cost too much money (if you have heavy volume) and next we hear that Google Maps cost too little money. I don't know if Open Street Maps will be that successful in France though... If you plot the density of documentation in en.wikipedia on a map, you see a hole where France is... Germans, Dutch and English like to participat…

I just created an account to reply to this... because I think your method (plotting density of en.wikipedia on a map) might be flawed. Not being French (or living in France) myself, I happen to be aware of the fact that they tend to do a lot of stuff in, well, French . Just saying - maybe plot fr.wikipedia on a map and compare to ge.wikipedia and es.wikipedia and then we will have some interesting data... You wouldn'…

+1. English Wiki - 3M articles German Wiki - 1.3M articles French Wiki - 1.2M articles

The French wiki is the 3rd largest, beating Spanish & Japanese (while there are far many more Spaniards & Japanese than French)

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