MapMyIndia: MapMyIndia sues Ola Electric for ‘copying’ data

Homegrown digital mapping services company MapMyIndia has sued Ola Electric for allegedly stealing its data and breaching the license agreement to create Ola Maps, according to reports.CE Info Systems, the parent company of MapMyIndia, which had provided services to Ola, has said that the latter has “copied” MapMyIndia’s proprietary data by co-mingling and reverse engineering the licensed product.

“You have duplicated our client’s API (application programming interface) and SDKs (software development kits) from proprietary sources belonging to our client to build OLA Maps. It is firmly stated that our client’s exclusive data has been copied/derived by you to further your illegal motive and for your unjust commercial gains,” according to a legal notice sent by CE Info Systems. The development was first reported by Forbes India.

“Your assertion that you have developed API and map data/Ola Maps solely through open map is factually incorrect and not tenable,” it said.

This month, ride aggregator Ola rolled out Ola Maps, the digital mapping solution created using proprietary and open data including real-time data of the Ola fleet and open-source government data repositories, OpenStreetMaps, it said in a blog.

“After Azure exit last month, we’ve now fully exited Google Maps. We used to spend Rs 100 crore a year, but we’ve made that 0 this month by moving completely to our in-house Ola Maps,” Bhavish Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Ola, had said in a blog on X.

Subsequently, global mapping leader Google had cut the pricing for Google Maps for developers in India by 70%, the biggest drop ever. For Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) developers, the discount was 90%.Again, in response to Google, Ola Maps also announced a 50% discount to Google’s reduced prices for large volumes. It also offered 5 million free API calls per month.