Coca-Cola accused of illegal mapping of a province in China
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A man walks past a Coca-Cola truck at a distribution centre in Alexandria, Virginia, on Oct 16, 2012. US soft drinks giant Coca-Cola is "cooperating fully" with Chinese authorities on allegations that it illegally mapped part of a southwestern province as part of its distribution operations, it said on Wednesday, March 13, 2013. -- FILE PHOTO: REUTERS
BEIJING (AFP) - US soft drinks giant Coca-Cola is "cooperating fully" with Chinese authorities on allegations that it illegally mapped part of a southwestern province as part of its distribution operations, it said on Wednesday.
Coca-Cola was found to have "illegally collected classified information with handheld GPS equipment", yunnan.cn, a news portal run by party officials in Yunnan province, said last month, citing a provincial mapping bureau.
The report did not provide further details on the case.
Coca-Cola said that its local bottling plants in China have used electronic mapping and other techniques as part of their logistics activities, but added that all the systems they used were freely available.
