EU To Hit Google With Antitrust Charges

Bruce66423 sends news that the European Union has decided to hit Google with antitrust charges that could lead to fines of over $6 billion. The EU has been investigating Google for five years now. "The European Commission has highlighted four main areas of concern in its investigation: potential bias in Google’s search results, scraping content from rival websites, agreements with advertisers that may exclude rival search-advertising services and contracts that limit marketers from using other platforms." They're also keeping an eye on Android-related business practices.

Comments

Re:Singled out?

[shutdown -p now]

For all of the problems they listed, isn't Apple far bigger and far worse with said problems? Why do I need Apple hardware to merely develop iOS?

I assume it's because Apple isn't in a monopoly or market-dominant position.

Re:This sh*t again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the problem is that Google was telling businesses "You must give us all your advertising business or we won't show you in our search results" (or some variation of that statement. Which is to say, they were using their near-monopoly position to blackmail people into giving them their business. Preventing that sort of extortion is exactly why anti-monopoly laws were passed in the first place.

Re:People are tribal even when they don't realize

[TubeSteak]

And if you think that it's wrong of EU to investigate an American company, think about it this way:

Google is a European company.
Actually, many European companies.
http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/locations/

Google's European headquarter is in Ireland... well, actually, it's an Irish company that is headquartered in Bermuda.
Google USA licenses its IP to Google Ireland Holdings (headquartered in Bermuda).
In turn, Google Ireland Holdings sub-licenses the IP to its wholly owned subsidiary in the Netherlands: Google Netherlands Holdings B.V.
Then Google Netherlands Holdings B.V. sub-sub-licenses the IP to another Google Ireland Holdings subsidiary: Google Ireland Ltd.

To coordinate all this, Google has a network of corporations in individual EU States, usually just "sales support" staff who run the ad-sales and ad-placements.

TLDR: The EU can't break up Google USA, but they can force Google Ireland Holdings to GTFO or change the way it offers services in the EU.

Re:No they can't ignore consumer protections

[Computershack]

Unfortunately (for you) Google is in a position to play hardball, unlike Microsoft who needed to sell stuff to the EU. What's the EU going to do, block Google? Good luck with that.

The EU is the richest market in the world. Its GDP is more than that of the USA by more than $1Trillion, its population almost double. Google will not want to be blocked in the richest trading bloc in the world.