Reply to post: What, exactly, are Google supposed to do here?

Streetmap's lawyer: Google High Court win will have 'chilling effect’ on UK digital biz

Chris Hunt

What, exactly, are Google supposed to do here?

I'm searching for a physical location - a local coffee shop - on Google.

Google provide me with their address (physical and/or website) but also - evilly - the put up a map with the location of the place highlighted. And no ordinary map, but one which they built and funded themselves (the bastards). That might appear pretty useful to me, the seeker of coffee shops, but actually it isn't because... reasons.

So, if they see the light, what should Google be doing instead? Not including a map, but putting in a link to Streetmap instead? That doesn't sound very competitive-market-friendly. How about a huge block of links, in random order, to all possible providers of maps in that part of the world? It would be no use to Google's users, but it would keep their competitors happy.

I have no doubt that Google do all manner of unspeakable things, and I'm glad people are calling them out on them, but it's not enough to say "this is wrong", you have to add "this would be better". And it has to actually *be* better too.

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