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Google Slapped With $2.7 Billion By EU For Skewing Searches (bloomberg.com)
Google suffered a major regulatory blow on Tuesday after European antitrust officials fined the search giant 2.4 billion euros, or $2.7 billion, for unfairly favoring some of its own search services over those of rivals. The European Commission concluded that the search giant abused its near-monopoly in online search to "give illegal advantage" to its own Shopping service. Margrethe Vestager, the EU's competition commissioner, said Google "denied other companies the chance to compete" and left consumers without "genuine choice." The hefty fine marks the latest chapter in a lengthy standoff between Europe and Google, which also faces two separate charges under the region's competition rules related to Android, its popular mobile software, and to some of its advertising products. From a report: Google has 90 days to "stop its illegal conduct" and give equal treatment to rival price-comparison services, according to a binding order from the European Commission on Tuesday. It's up to Google to choose how it does this and it must tell the EU within 60 days of its plans. Failure to comply brings a risk of fines of up to 5 percent of its daily revenue. [...] "I expect the Commission now to swiftly conclude the other two ongoing investigations against Google," Markus Ferber, a member of the European Parliament from Germany. "Unfortunately, the Google case also illustrates that competition cases tend to drag on for far too long before they are eventually resolved. In a fast-moving digital economy this means often enough that market abuse actually pays off and the abuser succeeds in eliminating the competition." Google has been pushing its own comparison shopping service since 2008, systematically giving it prominent placement when people search for an item, the EU said. Rival comparison sites usually only appear on page four of search results, effectively denying them a massive audience as the first page attracts 95 percent of all clicks. In a blog post, Google said the EU has "underestimated" the value Google's services brings to the table. "We believe the European Commission's online shopping decision underestimates the value of those kinds of fast and easy connections. While some comparison shopping sites naturally want Google to show them more prominently, our data show that people usually prefer links that take them directly to the products they want, not to websites where they have to repeat their searches. We think our current shopping results are useful and are a much-improved version of the text-only ads we showed a decade ago. Showing ads that include pictures, ratings, and prices benefits us, our advertisers, and most of all, our users. And we show them only when your feedback tells us they are relevant. Thousands of European merchants use these ads to compete with larger companies like Amazon and eBay. [...] Given the evidence, we respectfully disagree with the conclusions announced today. We will review the Commission's decision in detail as we consider an appeal, and we look forward to continuing to make our case," wrote Kent Walker, SVP and General Counsel at Google.
I'm not sure how this one works. Google can find information, in this case about products. Searching for a product would normally just bring up Amazon, and skip the price comparison altogether. Is Google just not allowed to supply this service?
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If you break the law, you have to face the consequences. Thankfully the legal system here does appear to much more fair than across the pond, and those that unlawfully abuse their power in the market will get slapped down.
This judgement makes me happy.
(as an aside, it does also bring revenue in from an entity that appears to abuse the Dutch Sandwich tax process..)
- This sig deliberately left blank. Nothing to see, move along.
This fine is moronic on so many levels I'm just cringing in disbelief:
The Commission, sadly (yes, I'm *strongly* pro EU!) is EU's corporate-listening organ. Commissioners mainly talk to lobbyists.
Now EU is desperately in need of some credibility. My fear is that they are just performing this theater for us, the populace, to enjoy to a beverage (of course, Coca Cola) and some junk food (Neslé or Mars).
Remember, the fine isn't paid yet, and it might take looong, possibly forever.
Remember (it was the US, but lobbies work similarly) the Microsoft case?
Sceptic. Monopolies are treated differently nowadays than they were in Standard Oil and Ma Bell times. Today they're still illegal but they do get away with it.
I'd be glad to be surprised, though.
to do with this. They really upset a lot of people when they made the decision to kill a useful product spring of 2007. After that destruction of that product, several sites that had great prices went out of business since customers could no longer find them. Google did this to unfairly kill competition.
... in a way the EU didn't like. The EU is fine with bias; they just want it to be bias in their favour.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Google Slapped With $2.7 Billion By EU For Skewing Searches
Wow, I'd love to be slapped with that money.
Wait, did you leave off a word?
WTF is equal treatment? Someone grew a profitable business and got a shitload of money, which allows him to pay for the top tier hookers. Shall I sue him for equal treatment because the only hookers I could afford are ugly and fat? Why?
Google, like many other big corporations, ensures they pay only the absolute minimum taxes in all countries they operate. They can do so, because they do have the resources to set up the infrastructure necessary.
Also, Free Healthcare doesn't exist anywhere, you pay for it in one or another way and most European countries don't have a "free" college system either.
And newsflash: Corporations are not only expected to pay a percentage of their profits to the governments they operate in, they're required to do so. It's that tax thing you're talking about.
Ah, and by the way. We don't write checks, we simply do wire transfers. Welcome to the 21st century.
Does anyone read this crap before it is posted?
Google "denied other companies the chance to compete" and left consumers without "genuine choice."
We should start right there. Who forces anyone to use Google in the first place?
Google has been bribing Firefox developers to cripple the browser by getting rid of XUL extensions and dumbing down the UI forcing users to use dodgy forks like Pale Moon. It would be great if Firefox could be freed from Google Influence so its not a chrome clone any more.
Once upon a time a European country making a fuss about anything was yawn worthy for a large, multinational corporation.
Here's a $2.7 billion fine - that time of regulatory commissions having no teeth is over.
I know I know...when the UK leaves the EU it can have it's fat politicians bribed for peanuts in comparison and bent over by such a large company also because it will be desperate for tax revenue...but for now let's enjoy the regulatory muscle provided by "unelected officials".
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
'Cut a check' is a long established idiom. Welcome to English.
I live in Finland which is part of EU. I haven't even heard about this Google Shopping before. Is this feature shown only in some countries?
I tried disabling ad blocker and still couldn't get anything like that to appear. I even googled for "Google Shopping" and while the main page of it loads, it doesn't show any products when I try to click some of the categories or when I try to search products.
All Google really needs to do is to wait it out. As soon as the UK and Germany finish their respective departures from the EU, the remaining countries will either follow suit or slip into bankruptcy and the rest of the world will cease recognizing it as any sort of official body of legitimate government .
Engine they Choose to Use, If they don't Like the Results all they have to do is change the place they are searching from.
This seems to me to be the EU is using this to Supplement there Finances since I am sure they NEVER have enough $$$$$ Coming in.
I got an Idea Maybe the EU should just make it a Law that you can not use Google for Searches that way they can make there People
Criminals for using there Preference for Searches.
'Cut a check' is a long established idiom. Welcome to English.
No that's American. In English it's cheque
(ducks)!
What about Apple with App Store? They don't give competitors a chance to have their own stores on iOS. EU, wake up!
This is still the old grudge after they could not manage to compete with Google with their bullshit idea of "Quaero" which was pushed by French government and failed, because Google is simply too successful in their business.
You need to be blind not to see that they punish Google, Microsoft and Apple for getting special deals or advantages for the EU economy. They don't want to harm them too much. They want a money source. If they would like to harm them, they would go after Microsoft's and Apple's bundling of software and hardware (aka OEM) and Google's personal data transparency.
Remember the browser war with Microsoft? If the EU were consequent, they would force Microsoft to advertise Open/Libre and other Office suites with every offer and sale they make. Sound stupid? Yes, this is all is stupid!
what a surprise?
Don't forget "Google should punish the EU by turning off search there!"
We control everything.
Well it isn't a monopoly. We have Microsoft Bing as a search alternative. If Google Were to go out of business and close its doors, They are companies and services that could pick right up.
EU doesn't always attack US Companies. However it would be naive to think that the EU won't take care of its self interests before a non member countries.
Free market to an extent is still needed otherwise the push to innovate will diminish. European built products are normally known for its quality, however not for its innovation. So when a brand new game changer innovation comes out from an other country, US, Japan, China, India... Europe tends to get very defensive about it, until they can make their much nicer version of it.
But where is the European Premium Google alternative? China has Alibaba.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Limeys don't cut checks, they bounce them.
I'm confused. Did you just put forward a conspiracy where EU is abusing it's law enforcement powers, only to later admit that this conspiracy doesn't make sense?
But where is the European Premium Google alternative?
https://www.ixquick.eu/
They broke the law of being a rich US company with a presence in the EU and the EU wanting money.
Its gotten to the point where the written laws no longer matter. No one can definitely cite what was broken, but they were given "talking points" that seem reasonable to them and that's all they need, not truth.
They admit if you use their ad-service you will get a nice relevant link with picture and review and one click to get to the relevant page
And this is done for the benefit of the consumer.
But this also means for every online retailer: USE OUR AD SERVICE!!! or become irrelevant by not showing up in search results.
IMO they confessed their dominant search market abuse in their blog, but we do it in the interest of the consumer (while screwing over all online retailers)
Pull out and send the EU back to the stone age where they belong (and want to go).
Europe supplies the majority of the 100K H1B tech workers each year that carry the U.S. tech sector, because Americans are increasingly dumbed down from the failure of their educational system.
Also, unless you have had your head stuck in the sand for the last few years, you should know by now that the NSA and CIA have been carrying out financial, political, and industrial espionage and theft of industrial secrets against European companies for decades. So keep lying to yourself that Europe isn't "creating anything".
This is the 3rd consecutive day that Microcenter's website has been down.
The only message is a maintenance page stating, "we're updating our site".
It is currently not possible to place orders or check status on existing orders.
-
Anybody know what happened?
First of all this fine is only ~1% of the EU budget so it's peanuts
Second this fine is directly related to the revenue of the company so the company will deter from doing the anti-competitive behavior again.
Ask yourself: If I give you a 1$ speeding ticket from driving to fast in my street, will it stop you from speeding there the next time?
What if Google were to make all searches for anything EU related return only antiEU propaganda. A user searches "is the eu good" , gets 50.000 results of why the EU should disband. Search for "is the eu protecting customers" get 10000 results for chem trails water chemicals... And also not pay anything tax/fine... Could a mega corporation topple the EU if it really wanted?
Limeys don't cut checks, they bounce them.
a bit like your president ;-)
They can't create anything, so they punish those who do. Sad to see the self-appointed "civilization-bringing continent" (as they declare in their ludicrous "constitution") stoop so low. They must be desperate.
They can't create anything? How about the printing press, the first technology that allowed mass distribution of information. The steam engine that powered the industrial revolution. Radio, that allowed information to be transmitted literally across oceans without connecting wires, and to ships. Penicillin, the first antibiotic. Asepsis, that reduced infections after surgery. The balloon, the first tethered balloon, and the first sustained flight of a human using another balloon. The first working telegraph and the first commercial telegraph system. The first railroads and steam locomotives which enabled movement of large cargoes across great distances regularly. Radiation and transmutation of elements. The concept of satellites. X-rays.
So the Europeans can't create anything?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I'm not an American... ;-)
Probably not the best way to say "alter"..
Google USERS choose to use Google.
Get it? The PEOPLE of the world have spoken, and they prefer Google.
Get over yourselves you fucking ignoramouses in the EU government, you're fucking clueless.
I'd turn off Google for the entire EU for a month, see how they like it.
Yawn. Any recent relevant examples?
We know they do this with search; now if they can get fined for doing it to android.
Really shouldn't be surprised that Google a company built on ad revenue and has total control of searches on the web. Would used that power to advance their own. This is why its scary to place so much power into one companies control. Really too bad Google has such a majority of control over web search. But users get into a habit and its hard to retrain to use something else. I've though Google search was tainted for a long time, but I don't find myself adopting DuckDuckGo or Bing or even Yahoo. Everybody Google's which is part of the problem.
APK shut up you racist retard
Everyone knows it is you posting this crap so why not sign it and claim your retard work
Better yet why don't you go coke on some elephant cock instead of posting to slashdot you dumb fuck
We're sort of responsible for the creation of the Americans too ;)
hurts as much as being Slapped With $2.7 Billion does?
Slashdot poster: It is perfectly reasonably for any Euro or Asian country to have economic protectionism to protect their companies and the jobs of their citizens.
Slashdot Community: Preach to me sister! Mod that dude up to the sky!!!!!!!!!!!
Trump: It is stupid for America to continually enter one sided trade deals where the other country uses protectionism, and our companies get savaged. We need to start thinking of America first and use protections when they do.
Slashdot Community: Trump and ALL his ideas are evil, even if it matches conventional wisdom on these forums. Mod anyone down who agrees with him, and kill their pets too!!!!!!
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
I don't understand how a valuable service that's paid for by advertising isn't allowed to advertise. Yellow Pages didn't need to be distributed with WantAds - why would Google need to promote their competitors?
I understood the antitrust litigation against Microsoft - they were forcing OEMs to exclude competitors' browsers, among other things. And a new OS gaining market share has high barriers to entry, but search engines just don't - make it available and the whole world gets immediate access, and there are a lot of cloud vendors that make it easy to scale up as the money comes in. ... and it's easy for people to switch.
Without high barriers to entry, Google doesn't have a monopoly, so anyone with a better offering could take over at any time. I think the EU should sue Google's competition for sucking.
Fuck Google and its never ending quest to squeeze money out of every possible area whether it makes sense or not.
Fuck Google and its persistent habit of killing off products people found useful.
Fuck Google.
The law of estoppel. By not taking action FIVE years ago, I would argue it is a bit late to cry wolf.
Instead Google is taking the Uber approach - do it anyway, and then negotiate to make past claimed illegalities, legal.
Here is how the google shopping idea works.
Say you are in the mood to buy a new chair. You go and google 'chair price' or something like that. Several options show up. As it turns out, google favors companies that sell chairs and pay for google advertising. They may not be the most famous company, the best reviewed company, etc. but they will get top billing.
When confronted with a long list, human nature is such that you choose something near the top. We are all lazy and who wants to read that much unnecessary stuff. This makes primacy pretty powerful in a search list. That said, technically google will display non-advertising vendors too, just further down the page or on the dreaded page two.
Keep in mind google also does this for most things, including news services or political discussions that it favors, to shape public opinion. How you are mass manipulated without your awareness is a deep and profound discussion, but that should be saved for another day. Walk before you run grasshopper.
Getting back to the point, google also shapes your searches by 'reading' your gmail and creating profiles about stuff that you have searched. Sadly, by this point, google knows more about you than many of your friends. It will place advertisements on web pages related to what it knows about you. It will also order your search hits based upon what it knows about you.
Keep in mind, nothing is for free. Many people enjoy their "free" browser, "free" email, and "free" search engine without giving a moments thought about how google gives away everything but yet still pays all those California engineers six figure salaries. A wise man once said to me:
"If there is no price on something, then you are the product."
Hope this helps some.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
So Europeans have to emigrate (again) to the US because their "civilization bringing continent" can't create any jobs for them? You're saying this, not me. Silly me, I thought their superior ubermensch culture was meant to rule over the whole world (De Gaulle said that, not me). Instead, they have to leave ubermenschland to toil among inferior, mongrel-race Americans (I've heard this kind of words more than once while in Europe, I would never use such vile language)? Maybe we should do you a favour and stop any immigration from Europe. Asians do quite well in tech and they have a better work ethic, usually. Ah, I forgot: you Europeans created everything. Because, herrenvolk I suppose. It's so sad you did not learn the lesson after two world wars.
The least expensive option for them is to keep this in court for the next 30 years, and I expect that's just what they'll do.
They can't create anything? How about the printing press, the first technology that allowed mass distribution of information. The steam engine that powered the industrial revolution. Radio, that allowed information to be transmitted literally across oceans without connecting wires, and to ships. Penicillin, the first antibiotic. Asepsis, that reduced infections after surgery. The balloon, the first tethered balloon, and the first sustained flight of a human using another balloon. The first working telegraph and the first commercial telegraph system. The first railroads and steam locomotives which enabled movement of large cargoes across great distances regularly. Radiation and transmutation of elements. The concept of satellites. X-rays.
So the Europeans can't create anything?
Well, except for all of the above, Europeans can't create anything.
Awesome job, now do Microcrap with their abusive roll out of W10 and the data gathering included that cannot be turned off!!!
One might almost infer that the EU is anti business, or ...anti non-EU business, or...(if one really has the tinfoil hat) anti-US-business.
Trump's a buffoon for wanting to raise protectionist barriers, but the EU deep-pocket-fining US businesses mainly for being successful (particularly in fields where EU businesses are struggling or don't exist) is *just* as stupid.
Hey, I guess it's one way to raise the funds to bail out the monetary union, once the German taxpayers ever get tired of footing the bill for the whole damned thing, right?
Hint: turns out you can't simply bolt the Drachma (or the Lira, or the Peseta) to the Deutsche Mark and get ... a Deutsche Mark. Funny, that.
-Styopa
What if Eu blocks all AdSense and halves Googles revenue? Could Google implode?
I'm not an American... ;-)
Riiiiiiiiight! ...
No, becuase the general eu populous are really well educated and lived next to the USER for long enough to know propaganda when they see it. Also no becuase the content better be in the many languages used in the eu or they won't believe it. As evidence, recent elections where the far right was heavily pushed by the Russian disinformation machine.
For a successful weaponized propaganda attack against a more homogenous, less educated and more culturally insular and religious populous, see the 2016 USA election.
the EU does its best to keep the playing field level in markets, nothing more, nothing less.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Your whole response reads like an autism outbreak, and you lost it right in the very first sentence. Europeans don't HAVE to emigrate; the €50K European tech salary means MUCH more in the EU than the $100K Google/whatever salary means in the US. They are leaving for the lie that is the American Dream and the lure of working for the big five in tech industry, not because they can't make ends meet.
Here's EU commissioner Vestagers comments about the process.
"Process
Since I took office in November 2014, I have given high priority to this case. Because various attempts to find a negotiated solution with Google had failed, I chose to take the case forward in a different way. My services first updated the information in the files. In April 2015 we then sent our Statement of Objections to Google, followed by a supplementary one in July 2016.
Before reaching our conclusions we have analysed huge quantities of data. This includes 5.2 Terabytes of actual search results from Google. That's the equivalent of 1.7 billion search queries, or about 460 million copies of my statement here today. It would take me more than 17,000 years to read them out.
Our decisions have to be based on firm evidence. We have to prove our points, even if they seem intuitive. Let's take, for example, the impact of prominent placement in Google's search results on traffic. First, we analysed studies on user click behaviour, which indicated that there is a link. But we did not stop there. We also accounted for the possibility that there may be good reasons why users click on the top result more often – namely, because they are more relevant. So, we simulated what happens if you swap the ranking of generic search results. This confirmed that the same result receives significantly more traffic, when ranked higher up.
Our investigations never take place in isolation. We had many exchanges with Google to hear its views. And we had many exchanges with its customers and competitors. Some of them, including US companies, were actively involved as complainants or interested third parties. And hundreds of companies took the time to reply to our questionnaires and to provide the Commission with essential information.
So, we took this decision after a thorough investigation that respected Google's rights of defence. We will publish the decision for all to see, as soon as we agree with Google and third parties on any confidential business secrets that need to be removed."
(source:http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-17-1806_en.htm)
Google had every opportunity to defend themselves. They failed.
Google has deployed its shilling operators in all the discussion sites. This is being fought tooth and nail by people that move around wealth at leisure.
Such as life-long debt, working two jobs to get to the point where you can count pennies to make ends meet, a growing number of ways for the bank to ram you in the ass and take everything you have, obesity epidemic and people dying like flies from cancer and heart disease, lower IQ than the world average? That kind of relevance? No, we leave all of that to the yanks.
"You are using it wrong" **jobs voice**
I seem to remember Google cheerleading when the EU bureaucrats went after MS for similar nonsense. So this is great, hilarious in fact. Also Trump should direct the DOJ to start looking at various EU companies for fake antitrust violations.
So what you're saying is that you don't have any recent innovations. Got it. By the way, that life long debt thing? We brought that from Europe, but the correct term is indentured servitude.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Slapped with $2.7 billion"? Is that like smacking someone with a rolled-up newspaper, but using rolled up $100 bills instead?
Well it isn't a monopoly. We have Microsoft Bing as a search alternative.
The existence of an alternative doesn't define a monopoly. Market power does. Bing has a horrendously low market share given the marketing power behind it. People don't use it just because it's there and that gives google a great deal of power. Even the name of the search engine is used as a verb. Let's not pretend that users won't put up with an incredible amount of abuse before changing especially given Google search's integration with other services and devices.
What happens if Google does not pay? Will the EU gendarmerie storm their offices in Europe and order "round up the Jews"? That would be very European of them.
The EC loves attacking US companies because xenophobia and anti-Americanism sell and keep people in office. Were it a German or French firm doing the same thing, nothing would be done about it.
The more I read their decision, the more I'm convinced this is completely about "sponsored results." At least after a few test searches, a couple things are clear to me:
This statement in the decision is true..
..and this statement in the decision is false..
..unless it's all about the sponsored results (i.e. the results that most users unconsciously skip over; I was doing it before I realized I needed to pay attention to it, in order to understand the EU decision).
It's that simple, right? EU wants Google to include unpaid ads by competitors in their sponsored results? (And for those ads to be as broadly targeted as Google's own ads, to the point of being comically irrelevant most of the time.)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
What they're saying is they don't keep an up-to-date list of all science and research done in the EU. Just because it's not the latest stupid gadget sold on the internet at $9.95 doesn't mean it's not useful innovation.
Have you heard of the H1B programme? It's the American tech sector that is hiring a whopping 100K each year from Europe and the world, not the other way around. That's more than the net number of successful graduates from your universities and colleges that make it through school, into, and remaining in the tech sector each year. That should give you an idea who are actually doing the lifting and innovating work __in your own country__ -- European, Russian, and Asian skilled workers.
Google is a search engine.
They provided search engine results.
They put their own search engine for shopping results ahead of random other shopping results.
This is not anti-competitive, this is not unfair, this is *literally their business model*. They provide search results.
I'm sorry if you're unhappy with WHICH results were provided, but if I were Google I would just fucking pull out of the EU entirely and let them discover exactly how much they were getting out of the deal.
First of all this fine is only ~1% of the EU budget so it's peanuts
Over 1.6% of the budget, but also higher than the average net contribution of all but four member states - one of whom is leaving in a couple of years, leaving the EU with a 15% shortfall in its cashflows.
A couple of fines this size each year will help plug that hole nicely.
Just wondering, which or Article 102 applies to Google?
Instead of a fine, offer the option to shut off their search engine for a week so alternatives could be used. Heck, maybe the Goog should just do it for spite.
RRK
Be sarcastic all you like, but I'm not.
It's a fundamental disagreement between the EU and America, and it is because America has changed since WWII. Fundamentally, the EU is closer to socialism and America full unbridled capitalism today. It wasn't always this way, you need to remember that all the major European institutions where essentially constructed in the shadow of WWII, with massive help and permission from the US. The US AT THE TIME was far more socialistic than it is today, with FDR new deal, the GI bill, and a far greater role of government in society than in todays American society. In todays American society big companies play a much larger role.
Over time, the US has regressed toward a more capitalist model, where capital, not society, is the main driver of government decisions. Hence it seems an affront to the American populous when the EU will make decisions to deliberately interfere in markets for the end goal of furthering European society, as it has done so here. It is acting to prevent the situation where capital and huge companies have more power over society than the government does.
Windows is not a public service. I'm hoping MS tightens some restrictions about allowing random shitty software to run on their OS. Hopefully they will start blocking chrome and firefox soon..
fuck monopolies and bad management
I recognize that US law is not governing in this case, but US antitrust law has an element that is directly on point here. One permissible defense that a monopolist can present in the US is that they possess "skill, foresight, and industry" that directly led to their market share. If that defense describes anyone, it describes Google. Not only that, but what standard are the EU authorities advocating? As an example, suppose you are reading a paper copy of The New York Times. Does anyone really expect the Times to direct someone to the internet, or Sports Illustrated, for baseball coverage? Of course not--they will direct the reader to the Sports section of the Times, even though better options exist. Similarly, Macys will direct a customer to "Jewelry, 8th floor" rather than to Tiffany's, even if the customer would be better served by going to Tiffany's. Google is being held to an impossible standard.
2.7B is but a pittance to them, and more than enough to buy a friendly-enough judge for the appeal to not have to pay anything for the next ten years while they drag out the proceedings. Anything less than increasing fines after the 90 days is a total capitulation.
Huh... First you try to say they are smart, now you say they are stupid.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
100,000 is a trivially small number of people.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
You say that, but once they all start trying to use your bathroom, suddenly it's a big honking deal.
2.4 billion EUR is getting significant. What will the EU commission do with that money?
Help Greece? (No, just kidding!) Reduce member state contribution to EU budget? Invest in infrastructure? Pay a bonus to members of EU commission?
So many otherwise intelligent people fail to understand the meaning of monopoly market power. This does not mean total control of a market, it means controllilng enough of it to, for example, force terms on customers that would not necessarily be acceptable in the presence of real, credible competition. There's more, but please start with this basic fact.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
this is just not right, nobody is forcing using google, there is plenty of other searches, this is their website, their business, and they can what they like with it, if people dont like it, then just dont use it, how hard is that ? and if people dont know how to use other searches, why blaming google for your lak of education ?
Eu is best to creating stupid laws,1st in world to do that, and then they are surprised that non tech company want to seatle R&D here
No, nothing stupid about leaving to work for the really big tech firms, but yeah they will become aware that the American dream is more of a dream than a reality.
No. 100K per year all of who mostly end up in IT is a huge amount, even in a country of over 300M people.
The people you bring in on the H1B programme is not your average $25K/year American who knows a bit of HTML, they are in every right an expert at what they do.
You can keep telling yourself that the 1M+ European and Asian IT experts bring nothing to your country, but the reality is your tech sector would crumble without them.
Also, judging by how first generation immigrants, in particular the Chinese who almost seem over-represented, account for the majority of research papers coming out of your so-called educational institutes, it seems all of that would crumble without foreigners as well.
Welcome to the resurgent socialist movement of Europe where private enterprise, that owes the users who freely come to their products to use it free of charge nothing, are forced to equalise search results for their competition.
It's Google's search engine, they can do whatever the fuck they please with it. Every single search result can return with dick pics if that's what Google wants.
The only people they owe anything to are their paying customers.
I hope Google drops their own comparison shopping service from Europe - and then follows the EU directive by dropping all other services from the search results to give them "equal treatment".
The EU WILL GET the 4 billion for the Paris Climate agreement that the US backed out of one way or the other.
Google employs more than that.
Also, I never said anything more than that. Save your time to put words in other mouths.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
So falling for a lie, that really shouldn't be believed, isn't stupid... Huh..
It's no wonder you bomb yourselves into rubble, every couple of generations.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Point conceded.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
In general, the State is a conspiracy to restrain trade to the advantage of its own tax base. It needs to maintain its own supply of mother's milk.
Google has the money, and now EU wants it.
This is the same shit that EU did with M$.
It's about time someone somewhere has the courage to bring Google to justice for tgeir behaviour. Everyone in America is in a haze thinking that their searches are what tgey were looking for when in fact Google has been replacing their searches with other search results that are paid for by tveir adwords customers! Google is evil and must be stopped.
Not the Russia bullsh*t again, please.
Insider trading is a felony
Casteism