Italian firm thinks Facebook’s “Nearby Places” is a copycat, gets feature shut down

An Italian software developer says that Facebook's "Nearby" feature is a copy of its application called "Faround" and has won a court case compelling Facebook to stop location sharing for now.

The Italian company, Business Competence, filed a lawsuit in 2013 saying that Facebook's Nearby feature violated Italian copyright and competition laws, according to a report in Reuters. A court ruling favoring Business Competence was issued in August but was only made public by the company yesterday.

The ruling orders Facebook to suspend Nearby Places or face fines of up to 5,000 euros per day. The ruling is a preliminary one, and another hearing is scheduled for next month.

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