Slashdot Mirror
EU Poised To Fine Google More Than $1 Billion in Antitrust Case (marketwatch.com)
Google is braced for a fine of potentially more than 1bn euro ($1.18 billion) as Brussels prepares to make the first of three antitrust decisions on the search group's practices, the first sanction by a leading competition regulator on the way it operates. From a report: The penalty, expected to be announced in the coming weeks, could exceed the record 1.1 billion euro bill slapped on Intel, in 2009 for anti-competitive behavior in the computer-chip market, the two people told The Times. The European Commission's antitrust body declined to comment to MarketWatch on the FT report, but referred to the latest steps taken in the case against Google. In July last year, the commission reiterated its conclusion that the search giant had "abused its dominant position by systematically favoring its comparison shopping service in its search result pages." Google and its parent company Alphabet were then given 10 weeks to respond to the findings. Reuters reported last month that Google had attempted to settle the dispute with the EU three times in the last six years, but the sides had failed to reach a compromise.
systematically favoring its comparison shopping service in its search result pages.
I have problems with Google, but .... fining them for favoring its own shopping service? Come on. It's their search engine, and their shopping service, and I don't like it and don't use it. Easy enough.
What they need to be fined for is collecting data on people who are NOT their customers and turning the entire web not to mention email into a giant surveillance network with Google trackers embedded everywhere. Most people have no idea how to avoid the Google Big Data Machine even if they are trying to avoid all Google products and services and have never signed up for anything with Google.
Fine them for that, not for merely favoring their own services.
Is the EU trying to make the #1 search for the term "EU" return the phrase "money grubbing whores?" Because this is how you end up with "money grubbing whores" as the #1 result when you search for "EU."
Just saying...
I didn't read up on the specifics of this one, but I don't believe I agree with this, from what I do know. Intel, Microsoft, etc. certainly deserved the judgments they received. But in this case, no one has to use Google. Nor is it a product anyone necessary pays for (monetarily at least). There are other search engines and anyone is free to use them. Google just did a much better job than anyone else. If someone doesn't like the results that they point them to, they can use Bing or something else.
Hey which big company has money that we can take...
>> Google had attempted to settle the dispute with the EU three times in the last six years
If Google had better lawyers, maybe their attempt to drag this out without resolution would have extended past ten years rather than a mere six.
Isn't making Google pay for this traffic a violation of Net Neutrality?
Why comment, if you don't need to convince anyone — neither beyond reasonable doubt nor even on the preponderance of evidence?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Well, first of all, Google and the EU better be clear about which part of Google faces any potential fine, because they won't have too much success trying to fine the Google parent for the alleged acts of its subsidiary. That is a much smaller part of Google. I wish reporters would get this point right in their stories.
The EU is a joke to everyone not in the EU. The sooner that whole thing implodes, the better.
They should fine Bing for antitrust reasons and promoting a Google monopoly by being so unusably awful.
The Apple case in Ireland and this case as well should indicate to any firm that dealing with the EU, they will be treated punitively in direct proportion to the size of their wallet.
You're a success? Clearly, you should be punished for that.
You made a deal with a nominally-sovereign EU government? Too bad! It's not the government's fault, it's yours - please pay us $13 billion.
Google: you've developed more or less an entire search/commerce ecosystem that none of the Euro-chauvinist competitors can beat? Certainly, you need to be punished: $1 billion.
Nike, Sanrio, and Universal Studios: you're next!
Frankly, it would be delightful if these firms decided that the EU was no longer a commercially viable market place. Let them search with Qwant, wear Adidas, and use Nokia phones.
-Styopa
This is really just the Germans getting even for WW2.
No, the bureaucrats are throwing a tantrum over Britain's exit, and are hoping to make back some of the money they were milking the U.K. for.
Google is a US company. The EU is going after them solely because of this fact, while domestic firms are given carte blanche
Absolutely true. Just look at the list of companies that have had antitrust rulings against them. Daimler, DAF, Saint-Gobain, Philips, Renault, Iveco, Siemens, Deutsche Bank.... None of these companies would have been ruled against if they were from the EU.
It's not Google's job to advertise for Bing.
Google's job is to index the web, and return relevant search results based on a fair algorithm. Hiding bing maps on the bottom of the 9th page (I finally found it), is not doing its job.
This is akin to USA Today complaining that the New York Times only advertises their own paper.
That's not the issue. The problem is not Google advertising their own search engine. The problem is abusing their dominant search engine to promote other business interests they own.
Microsoft gets fined a few hundred million dollars for causing real, irreparable damage to a critical world industry for decades, but Google gets fined over a billion dollars because some people couldn't be bothered to scroll down a bit? This is mind-boggling stupidity!
They modded you down because you made a stupid remark.
-- Cheers!
What a circus. Google isn't forcing anyone to use its search engine. If the EU has such a massive problem with a company promoting it's own businesses in the course of FREE use of its search features, then they can just block Google altogether. Good luck with Bing! I hope Google tells them to F off.
Thou shalt not use tools thou does not understand, lest they rise up and smite thee