FREE GEOGRAPHY IS KILLING THE GEOGRAPHY INDUSTRY!

Apparently so. Which brings up one more issue, in a age where nobody needs to pay for maps, people still do. You’d think they would be happy they’re still relevant in this futuristic age. Instead of adapting to meeting that different set of consumer needs of the people paying them money, they decide they follow the advice of greedy lawyers looking for money. Oh well, I guess copyright lawyers need more money from legacy industry.

I thought that monopolies were bad because they drive up prices, not drive them down? So what’s the point of the lawsuit again?

Comparing the economics of Google maps and openstreetmap is misleading and unethical journalism.

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.

Better yet, they’re appealing the fine.

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.

Uh, what? Your post is jarbled junk.

Since when has Google MADE you pay for their services?

Hmm, perhaps, but I wonder, what is Google supposed to do?

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)

Google has a monopole??? This is huge news! They were theoretical until now!

Coming from cheese-eating surrender monkeys, I’m not surprised.

The french are known for making rational decisions… vous savez.

Yes we need new laws to stop those damn pirates .. err thieves .. err content thieves … err ok I give up.

I sent the following email to the company and France. I am expecting a response anytime now:

On your website, Bottin Carto proclaims:

“Bottin Carto’s keys to success: its drive to innovate, constant adaptation to the market, and multi-channel approach, together with a team that shares the same personalisation-oriented culture.”

I’m curious how the company can maintain this position given that it maintained a successful suit in France against Google for daring to offer a more competitive (i.e. – FREE) product. More specifically, how can Bottin Carto maintain in good faith “its drive to innovate” and “constant adaptation to the market” given the nature of the litigation?

DISCLAIMER [albeit a snide one]: Aside from using the free email account and the other truly innovative services Google offers, I have no affiliation with the company. I just happen to have been reading about this story and was bothered enough by it as to be compelled to offer you this: I see right through that cloud of bullshit.

P.S. – Although I’m an American that’s never been to France or even Qu?bec (which, by the way, sounds like an awful place – don’t forget Celine Dion), I do begrudgingly insist on the French pronunciation of my surname.

What this is really about is protectionism; the French government protecting a French company from American competition.

I don’t know how you can think that is a sane argument. You see Google Maps when searching for “plumbers in Paris” on Google because Google recognizes that a map is a useful result to return for a search like that. It’s the same reason you’ll see some Google Image search results if you do a text search for something like “dog photos.”

Would anyone be complaining if Google Maps didn’t exist as a separate product, but was just a “type of Google search?”

Odd, my gentoo came free

One of the issues is that, with such a dominant position in the market, Google offering other “free” products on their search site can be taken as an unfair advantage.

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.

The report is inaccurate. It should be reported again as “French Court and Anonymous Coward Fail Digital Economics…”

I don’t think the article is suggesting that the court got it wrong under French law. I think the article is suggesting that French law got it wrong in terms of economics. Personally I agree, the law does get it wrong. Monopoly or dominant market position or whatever you want to call it is absolutely and unequivocally only a bad thing if it’s bad for consumers, the competition is irrelevant. Competition is an inefficiency we tolerate under the premise that doing so nets a better result and usually it does. When it does not, however, there is no reason to cling to it.

Has anyone told them about OpenStreetMap yet?

You and others here defending Google’s position should ask yourselves:

“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?

blinding idea, best way to make people aware, if only google we’re so inclined

So new business models are now deemed illegal, because the competition cant compete with free, because their to far behind google when it comes to business models that allow them to give their products and services for free.

>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.

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.)

google search has a monopoly in france? french browsers can’t display yahoo? mapquest? pdfs of frickin geography textbooks?

Oh, yes, let’s all complain; that would surely soften the tender hearts that operate Google. Why, they just didn’t know that there is actual public resentment at the fact that their stuff virtually rules the boards, pushes others off the radar-screen–and, uh, in their dominant position, they effectively hold sway over that “radar screen”.

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.