German watchdog launches Google Maps investigation

BERLIN: Germany’s cartel office launched an investigation of Google Germany and parent Alphabet Inc on Tuesday over possible anti-competitive restrictions on the Google Maps platform.

“We have information to suggest that Google may be restricting the combination of its own map services with third-party map services,” said Bundeskartellamt head Andreas Mundt.

He said examples of this could relate to the embedding of Google Maps location data, the search function or Google Street View into maps not provided by Google.