Maid in France...

Someone doesn't want to play anymore. The business playing field has morphed into a contact sport with big boys like Google mercilessly tackling the opposing team...the little guy.

That's one side of the story anyway. The French version. A French company called Bottin Cartographes is taking Google Maps to court, sighting unfair competition. The US internet giant is being sued for €500 000 in damages.

Why is everyone crying in their croissant? Because Google France (pronounced "goo-Gill fr-wan-ss")and the Google Mother ship (Google Incorporated) are providing free web mapping services to some businesses. Here's the rub though...this Paris based company provides the same service but for a fee and is accusing the G Machine for making business unfairly competitive and almost impossible for them.

They claim that Google's strategy is to undercut competitors by temporarily picking up the tab until it gains control of the whole market and by then, let's face it, it doesn't matter what they'll charge, the cycle will start all over again.

Bottin Cartographes' lawyer had this to say..."Google is ruining the market, they are squeezing out the competition and creating a monopoly for themselves." Not a bad strategy but when it comes down to it...is it really all fair in love and war? If that is the case it's only to absolve both parties from being wrong.

I don't like enemies and if I had to choose someone to hate on...Grand daddy Google wouldn't be my first choice but freakin' félicitation to Bottin Cartographes for taking a stand, in the name of best business practices...I salute you David.

Goliath Google declined to comment on the case. Hmmm, suspicious. Could it be as simple as that? Here we were trapped in an internal battle about whether or not there was truth in the da Vinci code, when actually, the machine was just distracting us from knowing their cunning plan...to take over the world.

All hail Godgle? Not in France. Small and medium business (one anyway) are getting on their French Horn and making some noise, who knows...they might even French Fry them and make French toast out of the Internet Giants.

Visit www.hummba.com to plan a trip to France or tell us about Paris! S'il vous plait