In a post about Google's agricultural-mapping expeditions, commenter skwash suggests that Google's snapping shots of business-free rural roads so it can create its own geographical database, shutting out map providers TeleAtlas and Nokia's Navteq:

The EU will review Nokia's $8.1 billion buyout of digital mapmaker Navteq. The Commission believes the deal could hurt competition. Navteq only has one large rival, Tele Atlas, which is being acquired by GPS maker TomTom. The EU is already examining that transaction. [FT]

GPS device maker Garmin has offered $3.3 billion for digital mapping service Tele Atlas. Rival TomTom offered $2.5 billion for Tele Atlas in an earlier bid. Currently, Garmin uses maps from Navteq. After that company was acquired by Nokia, Garmin started looking for other options. With $1 billion in cash, Garmin would finance the acquisition through cash and loans from several banks. What's this all mean? With Navteq off the market, expect something of a bidding war for Tele Atlas between Garmin and TomTom — and maybe Google. Garmin has an advantage here, though — it already purchased 5 percent of Tele Atlas on the open market. Shares in Garmin fell 11 percent after the bid was announced as investors worried that the purchase price could rise significantly. (Photo by AP/Reed Hoffmann)

Motorola CEO Ed Zander claimed that his company considered buying Navteq, the mapping-services company rival Nokia snapped up last week, but decided to pass. "We are not in the applications business," said Zander. Right. That explains, of course, why Motorola bought Good Technology, an email software company, last year. We have another theory: Bitches just jealous.

Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia is buying Navteq for $8.1 billion. The company's mapping service powers Google Maps, among others — including the Google Maps application for Apple's iPhone, a competitor to Nokia's handsets. (That's an exceedingly roundabout attack on a rival, but it's so obscure it just may work.) Nokia also says it will provide many more phones with GPS capabilities in 2008. [GigaOM]