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Google Challenges Record EU Antitrust Fine in Court (reuters.com)
Google appealed on Monday against a record 2.4-billion-euro ($2.9 billion) EU antitrust fine, with its chances of success boosted by Intel's partial victory last week against another EU sanction. From a report: The world's most popular Internet search engine, a unit of the U.S. firm Alphabet, launched its appeal two months after it was fined by the European Commission for abusing its dominance in Europe by giving prominent placement in searches to its comparison shopping service and demoting rival offerings.
said no one ever.
Even Google can't dismiss a fine of almost 3 billion dollars as a mere cost of doing business. Penalties for corporate abuses need to be truly painful if they're to serve as deterrents.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Let's hope the appeal will double the fine.
It will take them MINUTES to make that back!!!!
Actually, it's about 40% of google's most recent quarterly earnings.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I Altavista'd this and can confirm it.
yes, but we have so many AC trolls, that it is just better off to not answer idiots like that.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Is that "ACME company" a monopoly or extremely dominant in the marketplace?
Keyword (in the title, quite visible): "antitrust"
How many people said they only wanted to see results from companies that paid Google to be placed there?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
They could repossess the nice big buildings that Google owns in the middle of London, Paris, Dublin, Munich, and so on.. They could confiscate all of the advertising revenue that flows from EU companies to Google via EU banks. They could confiscate all revenue that flows through EU payment processors to the Google Play store. They could prevent mobile phones sold in the EU from including Google apps.
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I want a price comparison site in my Google results. I do. When I'm looking for a moderate to major purchase, it's convenient and helpful. I don't want to figure out, and keep up to date on, which shopping site has good results for one product or another - I want a unified search that gives me good results.
They can find out how to pay the fine, what with vast amounts of their loot hidden away from tax gatherers. That and if they can magically find the ready cash how they can explain why it shouldn't be taxed like your run-of-the-mill regular business.
No, it's idiotic. Just go directly to Amazon to shop. Nobody has better prices or better selection.
So go to the site you trust instead of searching Google, then searching some other site? Its like going to the classifieds to find ads for another classified service. How often does your newspaper list other newspapers?
When Google wasn't deranking these sites searching for any product resulted in pages of these junk comparison sites which only exist to use affiliate links.
Europe is simply trying to go after foreign companies to make money from, rather than tax their own.
The overwhelming majority of companies that have been fined in Europe are European. They may not all make the frontpage of slashdot because most aren't IT companies, but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen.
Then, what is the purpose of Google, if you can't trust them and have to go by your own?
The reason that EU fined Google is that they have a demanding market share, and therefore also a responsibility to not abuse it.
I will look forward to see the outcome of the court case, but I will also say that I am worried as a consumer, if I can't trust the search engine I am using to deliver an honest result, because then I am screwed, as well as everyone else using it.
If that search engine is a minor search engine I can always look for another, but if it has too much presence so I can't reliably use another one, then I am in a stalemate as consumer, and will have to rely on authorities to rectify it.
No firewall needed, just compell sll eu ISPs to drop their bgp sessions with googels cdn (ehm in fact the only ones you need to compell is the excabng point operatos and you don’t even need to drop sessions, which would alert googel the sane second, just filter the prefixes comming from that peer)
Then, what is the purpose of Google, if you can't trust them and have to go by your own?
Its about trusting them to find relevant search results - do you also expect Google's results page to also include Bing's search query, Yahoo's results page, etc. etc.?
Google leases those places
Are you sure? I'm pretty sure that they bought the building near Kings Cross, at least.
As far as revenue, it takes all of about 2 days to switch banks for processing
Doesn't help. Any bank that does business in the EU will freeze accounts when required to by law or lose their banking license in the EU. Unless they decide to go entirely to taking payments in Bitcoin, there is no way of avoiding this (and if they looked seriously as if they were trying then they'd also be hit with money laundering charges).
And yes - you could prohibit Google apps from cell phones - and piss off 70% of the population (Android OS is about 70% of all mobile OSes in Europe)
Android OS isn't a Google product, the Google Apps that most handset makers ship in addition to Android are. Samsung and Amazon ship devices with their own replacements for these and would be very happy to suddenly be handed one of the largest markets in the world.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Because Google isn't the only player in most of those markets, only the dominant one, and the EU is the second-largest market in the world. You don't cede the second-largest market in the world to your competitors and expect to remain dominant in the largest and third largest.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Because Google knows how valuable the European market is, and they would hate to simply hand it over to a competitor.
Same reason why big corps like Coca-Cola and McDonalds bitch and moan about the Danish tax rates, but they never actually follow through on their threats and actually leave the country. Because they know it would be a valuable market to simply hand over to a competitor, for free.
Eat the rich.
"Come to their senses"?
I think taking action against a hugely dominant market leader (meeting most, if not all the marks of being a de facto monopoly) is very sensible.
Fuck the big corporations, we don't need them. There is always an alternative.
Eat the rich.
There is always an alternative.
I thought I had made that abundantly clear.
What most seem to miss is a very simple concept, they are just too intent on taking private property (in this case, Google's) to see it.
1. Unlike Telecoms or, going back into history, railroads, or "the Seven Sisters" oil companies, Google does not prevent, nor do they present, a barrier to entry into their markets. Anyone can code up a search engine / index, Google won't stop you. Try opening a competing telephone or cable company, and the industry monopolists will tie you up in court before you can say "free markets". (Not that I'm a libertarian, or some sort of free market freak. It's just the way this rolls in this particular case. For monopolies, I'm in favor of tight regulation and oversight and I support net neutrality. )
2. Most seem to want to "tame" Google / Alphabet to their own needs. Sorry, without a monopoly that prevents others from competing, there is no moral or legal justification to grant this. Really dude.
3. Google has spent likely billions of dollars on their product. Unlike a monopoly, they have no power to stop someone else with a better idea. Ipso facto, if you want to beat out Google / Alphabet then your course is very, very simple. Give people a better experience then Google.
4. The reason Google / Alphabet is successful is because they give a better experience for more people than the likes of Bing, Duck Duck Go, or Yahoo.
As I see it, though I'm not in love with Google, is that those that want to see them brought under regulation and government oversight is because they have no other way to make Google do what they want. There's a word for that.
It's called "Communism" - and I'm fine with that if that's your opinion, but please, let's label it with the correct term before we go pelmell down that path.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
You're making this needlessly complicated. Google is a de facto monopoly (you try and compete with them. Go ahead, see what happens) and they've been found to be abusing that power to lord over others, determining almost solely who succeeds and who fails. Therefore, regulation is needed, before their influence gets out of hand.
Eat the rich.