From the second paragraph of the article: "In a ruling Tuesday, the Paris court upheld an unfair competition complaint lodged by Bottin Cartographes against Go

From the second paragraph of the article: "In a ruling Tuesday, the Paris court upheld an unfair competition complaint lodged by Bottin Cartographes against Google France and its parent company Google Inc. for providing free web mapping services to some businesses." It looks like the issue isn't that it's free; it's that Google provided free maps services to some businesses while charging others. That's the gist I got from the article, anyway.