In a David vs. Goliath court case, Facebook has been ordered by the Court of Milan to disable its location-sharing feature or pay a 15,000 Euros per day fine.
The Italian software firm Business Competence, claimed that Facebook’s “Nearby Places”, is a copycat of a their app location-sharing app Faround.
The lawsuit was filed in 2013 claiming Facebook violated copyright and competition laws, but has only recently been made public.
According to Reuters the company spent 500,000 Euros developing the Faround app. It was in fact launched in September 2012 and was Italy’s most downloaded social networking app in mid-November 2012 – shortly after Facebook launched Nearby Places.
Facebook was ordered to not use, distribute and exploit the Nearby Places application, to withdraw it from the market for Italy and pay a fine of 15,000 Euro each day they continue to use 60 days after the ruling. The court also ordered the publication of the ruling in two major Italian national newspapers and for Facebook.com to publish the sentence.
