Google faces a $660,000 fine after a French court ruling that the company is abusing its dominant position in mapping by making Google Maps free. According to The Economic Times, the French commercial court "upheld an unfair competition complaint lodged by Bottin Cartographes against Google France and its parent company Google Inc. for providing free web mapping services to some businesses." Bottin Cartographes provides mapping services for a cost, and its website boasts several business clients such as Louis Vuitton, Airbus and several automobile manufacturers. The French court ruli [...]

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It sounds great. A program that guarantees top listings for local searches on Google, Yahoo and Bing. An "officially approved" one in "cooperation" with those search engines. But it's not so, say Google and Bing. The "Local Paid Inclusion" service launched officially today. The site's home page pitches: Local Paid Inclusion is a Google, Yahoo and Bing contracted service and is offered as an approved official program in cooperation with those search engines. Local Paid Inclusion promotes a local business’ profile page, like those found in Google Places, Yahoo Local and Bing Local, into [...]

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Last November Canadian digital agency Mediative (owned by Canada's Yellow Pages Group) released an eye- and click-tracking study focused on Google Places and Google Maps on the PC. We wrote up the results when they were published. Mediative then followed up that study with a similar one focused on the Google Places app on the iPhone. For the iPhone-app study, just published yesterday, Mediative monitored eye- and click-tracking with 12 people in Canada. They ranged in age from 21 to 45. The participants were asked to find places to get a tattoo in each of several Canadian cities. Here's the [...]

Related Topics: Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Stats: Search Behavior | Top News

Google is hoping to expand its Business Photos product with the launch of a new service called "Trusted Photographers" that essentially makes the process entirely self-service. Local businesses that are interested in having interior photos taken can use the new Business Photos website to find a "trusted photographer." The business owner and photographer are supposed to negotiate prices and schedule an appointment directly. After the shoot, the photographer uploads the images to Google and they'll appear in Google Maps/Places "shortly thereafter." Google's FAQ says that the business owne [...]

Related Topics: Google: Maps & Local

Google announced a new layer of data being added to Google Maps for public alerts. If there are emergency alerts in your area, Google will show them to you on the map, with more details on the alert. You can access it over at google.org/publicalerts. The map will load with a layer of data on top of it. You can search by location to see if there are any alerts in your area or just browse the alerts on the left hand side or on the map. The information is also available directly on Google Maps when you search for events in a location, such as [tornadoes in texas]. Here is a picture of z [...]

Related Topics: Google: Maps & Local