i think the nub of the argument is that Google id able to invest billions in mapping with no need to generate any income from that business unit, it was simply a loss leader that supported its need to ensure people go to the Google homepage to start their visit on the internet.
The fact 1000s of staff around the world in country specific mapping companies were put out of business overnight appeared to not matter as each country has no power over a foreign company regarding monopoly powers. Governments are also powerless and toothless.
It is interesting how smart the China have been to block Google and in so doing create enormously important businesses such as Baidu search engine and Alibaba that are now global businesses. its a shame Europe did not shield its own local tech companies to give them a little space to build but were still born due to the sunami of Google muscle.
It was interesting 5 years ago when Google started to provide the abiliity for estate agents to simply post their properties directly to Google maps. It was a brilliant service but i did wonder how the world of Rightmove etc would take it as they would be out of business in a short period of time as they would be obsolete. The reality was that Rightmove etc all threatened Google to pull their advertising and that quickly stopped the project in its tracks. The Google property service was ended.
It is interesting that Google do not tread on specific markets where they extract vast advertising revenue. However the companies in mapping, analytics, mobile OS or email have been gobbled up with no need to generate income and can loss lead for as long as it takes before all other competitors are wiped out.
I think streetmap have a strong case as if you put Google maps on their own they would have lost billions by now and gone out of business but it only propped up by Google advertising.
Imagine Tesco having a monopoly on the sale of water and charging extortionate prices for this commodity but giving all food away for free as long as you need to buy expensive water from their stores. This is pretty much what Google are doing and no one seems to notice that their monopoly to charge companies vast sums for basic advertising on their search engine means they can give away everything else for free and in so doing wipe out many smaller companies around the world.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
