Even as Ola Electric is readying to go public next week, it has been embroiled in a controversy over stealing data from a fellow-publicly listed company.
Publicly-listed MapMyIndia has accused Ola of illicitly copying data to develop its recently launched Ola Maps interface, and sent it a legal notice. The allegation centres on claims that Ola Electric has been caching and saving MapMyIndia’s data, and co-mingling and reverse engineering the licensed product obtained through an agreement in 2021. Ola had launched Ola Maps earlier this month, and even opened it for developers to use on Krutrim Cloud.
“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,” MapMyIndia’s legal notice said. “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,” it added.
The notice is also contested Ola’s claim of developing its API and map data independently through open sources. “By indulging in such unscrupulous and illegal activities, you have acted in blatant defiance of the terms and conditions of the agreement and have further infringed the copyright vested exclusively in our client pertaining to the source code,” the notice said.
The development comes weeks after Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal had announced that Ola had developed its own Ola Maps, which it would use to replace Google Maps. Aggarwal had said that Ola would save Rs. 100 crore per year from the move. Ola had then made Ola Maps available on its Krutrim Cloud at rock bottom prices, and encouraged Indian developers to switch to it from Google Maps. Google too had appeared to take notice of the new launch, and slashed prices of Google Maps for Indian developers. Ola had then in turn slashed its prices once again, and offered Ola Maps for free for as long as two years for small developers.
But now it turns out that Ola might have used MapMyIndia’s proprietary data to build Ola Maps. Ola had been using MapMyIndia’s services till 2021, and MapMyIndia alleges that Ola used this collaboration to surreptitiously build its own maps product, and then offer it to other users. It remains to be seen how the case plays out in courts, but this legal notice — which implies illegal activity on the part of Ola — couldn’t have come at a worse time for Ola as it readies to hit the public markets later this week.