Ola Electric has found itself in legal trouble with the parent company of MapMyIndia. MapMyIndia’s parent company, CE Info System is making allegations that Ola Electric has copied data from MapMyIndia for its own mapping service in India.
Both companies established a licensing agreement in 2022 that allowed Ola Electric to use MapMyIndia’s navigation services for its S1 Pro electric scooter. It also strictly prohibited Ola Electric from mixing the licensed product with other competing products, reverse engineering, or attempting to extract or copy the source code from any API of the licensed product.
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So what happened was that earlier this month Ola Electric unveiled the Ola Maps. This was released as a competitor to Google Maps, which is the most popular maps app. As per CEO Bhavish Aggarwal, this shift is part of a broader strategy to save Rs 100 crore annually.
But Google didn’t take this very well. In a response move, it reduced the pricing for the Google Maps platform for developers in India by up to 70% and offered a 90% discount to developers working with the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC).
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Now, MapMyIndia has accused Ola Electric of unlawfully caching and saving its data. It claims that this is a clear violation of the 2021 licensing agreement. MapMyIndia is a leading digital map provider, which also became popular some time back. It says that it is prepared to pursue both civil and criminal legal actions against Ola Electric if necessary.
