Related

• Apple Is Still World’s Most Valuable Brand, Google Drops One Place
• China Approves Google – Motorola Deal, Wants Android To Remain Open Source
• AT&T to lower smartphone subsidies and introduce shared data plans
• Nokia’s cash reserves affected by the company’s struggles to regain market share

Google is facing a very weird fine in France once again as the company is accused of offering Google Maps free to some services. Bottin Cartographes filed a complaint against Google in a French court for using its position to offer Google Maps free.

Bottin Cartographes is a firm which offers mapping tools to several companies including Airbus and Louis Vuitton. The problem is that this services comes at a cost and several businesses have decided to turn to Google Maps, and say goodbye to Bottin Cartographes.

According to the company’s officials, Google has done a lot of damage to this service, and the website owners are demanding a fee of €500,000. In addition, the French court ruled that Google France will have to pay a fine of €15,000.

The decision of the court is not final, and Google may still issue an appeal in the following weeks, however, it’s very likely that it will win this case. Bottin Cartographes’ lawyers came up with a perfect plan and brought some good motives in court, fact which made the French court to order Google to pay €500,000 to Bottin Cartographes.

For the moment it’s unclear whether Google has also been ordered to start charging companies for using its service. The lawyers of the search giant said that they will review the Judge’s decision, and that offering free mapping services online is the best option for companies and users alike.

On the other, Bottin Cartographes’ lawyers said that Google has done an irreparable harm to the company because they’ve lost several clients after Google France offered free mapping services to several firms. They believe that Google committed an abuse of power, using its position as the biggest company on the web, the biggest search engine, and the biggest web mapping service to attract new clients damaging several other firms in the process.

This concludes a two-year long battle between Bottin Cartographes and Google France, and it only remains to be seen whether the search giant will comply with the demands of the court. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time Google has had problems in France as several companies have filed suit against the Mountain View firm.