The French Can Predict the Future


Heard of this ruling by a French court asking Google to pay damages and a fine to a French map making company?
“A French court has ruled that Google's free Google Maps application is anti-competitive and has ordered the company to pay €500,000 to Bottin Cartographes, a for-pay map company, as well as a €15,000 fine. Bottin Cartographes argued that Google was only planning to give away the service for free until all the competitors had been driven out of business and then they would start charging.”

I don’t even know where to begin. So had only Google charged for its maps, there would have been no problem! Second, I thought justice is about punishing people who committed a crime, not punishing based on opinions about what they might do in future (Like Google first driving all mapmakers bankrupt by giving maps for free and then starting to charge for them). That sounds like a prediction to me. Have the French got some Minority Report style technology to predict crimes of the future? Or a low tech crystal ball, perhaps? Or maybe it’s one of Nostradamus’ predictions? Oh wait, if the French could read the future, they would never have joined the Euro, would they?

Apparently, capitalists are always evil, even when they give stuff away for free! So what's next, France? Sue Wikipedia for giving encyclopedias for free? Sue Yahoo!, Gmail and countless others for offering email services for free and driving the postal department to bankruptcy?

Comments

  1. KumarFebruary 7, 2012 at 4:08 PM

    The French people have their own crazy ways of thinking! Surprising they didn't build their Eiffel Tower upside down! :-)

    Having said that the French seem to have the knack of doing what they please and still manage to hold a respectable position in the world. Can't understand these things.

    ReplyDelete

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