MapMyIndia alleges Ola of data theft, issues legal notice
Earlier this month, Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal announced that the company has fully transitioned away from Google Maps for its cab operations.
CE Info Systems, the parent company of digital mapping service provider , has alleged that has copied its data to develop Ola Maps.
The company has claimed that Ola cached and saved MapMyIndia’s proprietary data, leading to the co-mingling and reverse engineering of their licensed product, which was agreed upon in a 2021 contract, Forbes reported. MapMyIndia has sent a formal notice to Ola regarding these allegations.
The report cited the legal document which accused Ola Maps of having copied API (application programming interface) and SDKs (software development kits) data from one of MapMyIndia’s clients. It challenges Ola's claim that their API and map data were developed solely using open map sources, stating that this assertion is “factually incorrect and not tenable”.
"Ola Electric wishes to address the recent claims made by CE Info Systems Limited (“CE Info”) in relation to the alleged issues with Ola Maps vis-à-vis MapMyIndia and reported in news media. We would like to state unequivocally that these allegations are false, malicious and misleading. Ola Electric stands by the integrity of its business practices. We will suitably respond to the notice shortly,” a spokesperson at Ola Electric said.
YourStory reached out to CE Info Systems with queries. CE Info Systems has declined to comment.
Ola Electric has established a price range of Rs 72-76 per equity share for its highly anticipated IPO. The offering consists of a fresh issue of equity shares worth Rs 5,500 crore and an offer for sale of up to 84 million shares.
Earlier this month, Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal announced that the company has fully transitioned away from Google Maps for its cab operations. Ola, which previously spent Rs 100 crore annually on Google Maps, has had its expense reduced to zero by switching entirely to their in-house Ola Maps.
“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,” said Aggarwal on X (formerly Twitter).
Soon after, tech giant slashed the pricing of Google Maps Platform pricing for developers in India by up to 70% starting August 1, 2024, to make the platform more accessible for developers to build location-based solutions.
Aggarwal, in response, updated the pricing structure for Ola Maps with a completely free tier for five million API (Application Programming Interface) calls per month.
(Disclaimer: Shradha Sharma, Founder and CEO of YourStory, is an independent director in Ola Electric.)
Edited by Jyoti Narayan