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.

In an e-mailed statement to Ars, a Facebook spokesperson said the company believes the order was wrongly decided, but it has "respectfully complied with the order in the interim." She added that the company has appealed, and it believes the claims are without merit.

In its complaint, Business Competence says that its Faround app and Facebook's Nearby feature were "extremely similar" in how they operated.

The Italian company's CEO, Sara Colnago, told Reuters that the company spent 500,000 euros, or about $530,000, developing the app. It was launched in September 2012 and was Italy's most downloaded social networking app in mid-November 2012, according to one company that measures app downloads.

Facebook's Nearby feature was launched a few months later, according to the Italian court's opinion.