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EU: Brussels investigates Android map apps to see if they displace Euro rivals

By  |  November 11, 2015

Regulators are investigating whether Google has been supplanting native mapping applications and devices with its own Google Maps, thus causing a competition vacuum.

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    A questionnaire obtained by Bloomberg has been sent to rival companies asking for any evidence that the prevalence of Google Maps has damaged sales of rival devices such as TomTom, Garmin and HERE.

    Officials will also be looking for data on user numbers, preinstallation of mapping apps and the costs faced by cartographers to make mobile-ready versions of their work.

    The news is yet another blow to Alphabet, the company that used to be Google but now owns it, who last week faced a second legal challenge from Streetmap, the mapping app we all used at the turn of the millennium.

    Streetmap believes that the loss of traffic caused by Google’s prioritisation of its own maps in results is costing them dearly. Most of us didn’t know they were still a thing.

    Full content: Bloomberg

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