This company can't compete in the marketplace, plain and simple. You can compete with free if you offer a service that people are willing to pay for. It seems companies these days can't make money the old fashioned way. Companies that don't whine and complain are the companies that innovate. They offer customers what they want so they end up buying more.

The law is fine but this is the crux of the issue. Google has been in the game for a loooooong time and has not looked like making their service paid. Court got the ruling wrong imo.

Don't forget that France's foreign policy is atrocious. They were one of the major backers/founders of the EU, but are still massively protectionist with their foreign policy.The EU has been tailored to fit France's ideal (hence the CAP which benefits French farmers most for example), as though France protects its own businesses interests, even to the extent of fining/shutting down competitors that harm French business' interests.

The US certainly used to do the same thing, and it wouldn't surprise me if it still did to an extent. Protectionism can be good and bad (also depends upon perspective), but in this case in particular, it's ludicrous.

Why don't they just start charging if you live in France? We'll see how many French people that pisses off because they have to pay while the rest of the world doesn't. Not to mention we'd also see if the other French mapping services are even worth a mention under "fair" competition.

Then third, it really just boils down to a free money give-away in France. All you need is a half baked product like a search engine, email, calendar, cloud productivity suite, or any other similar service to Google's free offerings, start charging money for it, and then you can get some money from Google.

Well, absolutely nobody knows or use MapQuest in France... same goes for bingmaps by the way.

Well the fun fact here is that Google Maps (free) have been around for longer than Bottin Cartographes (paid). The court ruling is biased against Google anyway as the French Government have a financial interest in Bottin...

http://www.1bis.com/pro/actus.asp?lang=EN
31/7/2008
"Bottin Cartographes has received a State subsidy in response to the 6th request for proposals by the Fonds Unique Interministériel (R&D fund for competitiveness clusters)..."

The French Government actually created an un-level playing field for Google Maps.
If I were Google I would say "thanks but no thanks" pack up and leave. they don't need offices there and the French users do 99% of the stuff online anyway so it won't impact their ad-revenue too much. I'm sure Google are paying taxes on the servers and buildings they're renting in France but the French forget that...

Awesome, justice at work.

A free service is deemed unfair competition because someone else out there wants to collect money for it...But whats this, people are not willing to give away money for something that is readily available free of charge - those bastards, how dare they.

Its pretty amazing that the courts so blatantly favor business interests over those of regular people.
Wait for it, In another twenty years the companies will begin suing consumers for not buying their licensed goods and instead getting their stuff for free from the internet.

What about bing maps?

This is pretty stupid really.

Couldn't they now sue all free mapping services since they won? And what about OpenStreetMap?

if google ceo got balls, cut all google services in france ......they already proved that they cant survive alone

All very interesting. I'm in two minds.

The french government absolutely are allowed to create an un-level playing field in favour of French companies. This isn't unique to France, every country does it. The US government tried (and still tries) very hard to stop Airbus competing with Boeing. Countries have a duty to protect there traders from massively powerful competition, like google for example.

And I don't buy that it's totally different cause it's free (even though nothing is for free - it's just that YOU don't pay cash for it), or that the two companies provide the maps in a different way - it's the service that is the same even though the media is different.

Google doubtlessly worked hard, with all there network and technical might, to make the French maps useful for the French people. I'm sure it's a great service, if not the best. But culture is the difference here. The french are protecting their peoples interest by handing out a small fine (in google terms) so that competition is kept alive and stopping a tech gaint taking complete charge of an industry.

I think they should let the people of France vote on it.

If the french population want to pay for a french mapping service, they should be allowed to.

If the french vote to keep using a foreign free mapping service, they should be allowed to.

It would appear that the French already have this choice and they are choosing a free mapping service.
You know what else is free? air, I wonder when people are going to begin to charge for that.

Talk about the world of huh, Google Maps with Navigation on my Galaxy S2 have saved my *** plenty of times.

Why no one stops for a moment, and think that Google doesn't offer any thing for 'free'. They are simply get their revenue from targeted adv. through 'smart' usage of users' data.