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Google Facing Billions in EU Antitrust Fines (axios.com)
Another EU antitrust fine for Google is coming down the pipe in mid-July over allegations Google has used its Android mobile operating system to beat out rivals, Reuters reports. From a report: The European Commission has been investigating the case since 2015. It's another example of how the EU takes anti-competition violations far more seriously than the U.S. In June of last year, the EU slapped Google with a record $2.8 billion fine for anti-trust practices around its search product, which they said unfairly pushed consumers to use Google's Shopping platform. Sources told Reuters they expect this new fine to top that record.
Oh... ok then. no fines for you.
With a $2.8B fine, and another that could be higher, would it just be more profitable to stay away from the EU where they appear to keep their economy afloat via litigation (gross overgeneralization, but you know what I mean)?
Chump Change! Sergy Brin has that in loose change in his couch on his mega yacht.
Perhaps they should not have started a business in a place they where unwilling to follow the law.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
The EU actually will enforce fines, split up firms, and take actions, and Google knows this.
They should move all their activities to Scotland, and make not getting fines part of the repatriation of Scotland into the EU after Brexit.
There will be a legal grey area for a few years as Lesser Britain falls apart, and they can easily get most of their Irish employees to move there for a few years.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
They could also play by the rules, and avoid the fine while still making more money compared to not selling anything at all.
which they said unfairly pushed consumers to use Google's Shopping platform.
They have what now? As an European, this is the first time I am hearing about "google's shopping platform", ever
With a $2.8B fine, and another that could be higher, would it just be more profitable to stay away from the EU where they appear to keep their economy afloat via litigation (gross overgeneralization, but you know what I mean)?
1) These billion dollar fines are a great way to keep the European government funded!
2) Trillion dollar corporations wouldn't even blink at a million dollar fine. The fines for egregious behavior need to be commensurate with their size.
Is EU paying google to run search service? Why they are treated like a public sponsored company or utility company? They are private business and they return results anyway they want to.
Running a personal data-mining business in a region of the world with strict policy laws? What could possibly go wrong?
privacy laws*
We have the internet without google. Who needs them, when they only serve themselves? That way of life might be honorable in the third world, like the USA, but in Europe, profiting from others without giving back is despicable, so much that it is punishable.
If your butt hurts so bad from multinational corporations raping you while ignoring regulations, maybe that's not actually Europe's problem? Maybe you're just a dumb bitch willing to take anything?
The EU is just sucking money out of US tech firms now. Android is free to use. There are no viable rivals that can do what Android does, other than Apple's iOS. Who would buy a new phone without a solid app platform, and pay extra to avoid Android? I don't get it.
that's 1/4th of one quarter's earnings...cost of doing business noise level
nothing to see here - move along
Such anti-trust allegations are persistent, the question is whether they end-up in form of fines or not. This time it look like EU decided to proceed ....
We have the internet without google. Who needs them, when they only serve themselves? That way of life might be honorable in the third world, like the USA, but in Europe, profiting from others without giving back is despicable, so much that it is punishable
What is preventing the EU from coming up with a better: hardware combination? Better search engine? Better operating system?
I fail to see how this is anti competitive when no one i the region is even trying to compete.
The US routinely does billion dollar fines against foreign companies as well. Just four stories down there's a 1 billion dollar fine against ZTE.
The US also likes to dig dirt on high ranking execs, there's always a corruption scandal or two, and use that pressure to facilitate a takeover. Even made up accusations of rape can be enough to scare whoever.
(gross overgeneralization, but you know what I mean)
No, I think you read slashdot stories on EU imposing fines, and then think all the EU does is imposing fines. This is like me saying the US economy consists in selling guns to kids so that they can do school shootings. Gross overgeneralization but you know what I mean :)
As for Google ceasing business in the EU this would likely cause a panic and seems unworkable. Were this 2004 we would just switch search engine but the monopoly on phone operating system, youtube, and shit tons people using gmail are a big problem. This is why we need e.g. linux phones but they don't exist yet.
You're a moron.
I would love it if every one of the Top 5 (Apple, Microsoft, Google/Alphabet, Facebook, Amazon) said "You know what? Fuck it. We're out" and just left Europe entirely. Just leave it to its own devices.
Having to support like 20-30 languages and legal systems?
Bear in mind, I can't even cite one Italian website or one Czech website. I don't know any single one. It's not like I can read Czech or even know anything about their concerns, celebrities, music, politicians, etc.
Even a European company will do better targeting the US market. Or maybe Africa eventually as much of it speaks French or English.
If you're a European company you can mostly target your own country, or a few countries, or go global. There's nothing inbetween.
What is preventing the EU from coming up with a better: hardware combination? Better search engine? Better operating system?
Socialism.
Well, they seem to be just changing the laws under them over and over again...becoming more onerous each time.
This is like the EU is trying to step up and dictate what a private company's business model is.
If the EU wants a search without the things Google offers and requires of its users, why don't they just build a state sponsored service, EUuugle or something and offer that to their citizens, rather than trying to dictate to a private company?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
This is why we need e.g. linux phones but they don't exist yet.
If there were sufficient demand for them, they would exist.
This Marlin Schwanke faggot loves it up the ass with big corporate dick.
European based companies do the exact same thing. The only reason why Google is being called down repeatedly, and this is a re-fining because Google already paid one round of fines, is because jingoism and anti-Americanism sell. It keeps the EU jobs secure when they have an enemy to point at.
If you look at europa.eu, you find that EU tends to not really bother cleaning their own house, compared to trying to clean the clock of foreign companies.
Trump needs to put some tariffs on those cunts.
Android is a monopoly, now they are forcing doze mode in all androids and if you want to send notifications you must do it through its server in usa for the whole world. I want to send my own realtime, secure notifications from my chosen server as always. I want to use imap mail as always. (K9 mail, a free classic mail android app doesn't work well anymore.) They want all the earth traffic to sniff and rule the world. Google is beeing evil and showing its true face with its monopoly. We need a Linux phone, sadly Richard Stallman was right, you can't trust these big companies.
I fail to see how this is anti competitive when no one i the region is even trying to compete.
It's not just about companies in the region, it's about every other company trying to compete. There are several search engines, for example, and if a manufacturer of an Android phone wants to offer different search engine options, Google should not interfere with that.
Like Medicare, food stamps, Social Security, public schools, Obamaphone, Medicaid, emergency rooms?
The law is being interpreted in a really strange way. Android has a major competitor with iOS. There's also the AOSP, so manufacturers can install Android without Google's branded software.
Manufacturers aren't prohibited from installing their own software, including software which serves the same functions as Google's options, so rival options aren't even chosen by Google - they're chosen by the manufacturers. And that's just the original install... users can choose their own browser, or other apps.
So, there's not a monopoly, and no restriction of choices, so I'm just not seeing the problem here.
They have laws, they enforce them. I know this bothers New Orleans faggots of no value or consequence, but that's your problem you retarded treasonous bitch Cayenne, not Europe's. Republican whiners don't matter there
They don't have to build it, all they have to do is work their laws so that there is a healthy competitive market where companies are not allowed to subsidize their capabilities with behavior that they don't want, or at least the effect of such behavior is mitigated with penalties. That is exactly what they are doing. If a company makes billions of dollars violating the laws then what is the motivation to create an honest company locally?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Except that paying the fine does not mean they get a waiver from the law. They have to pay the fine, and modify their business practices to comply with the law in the future.
What is the motivation for anyone to start a company when they will be clobbered by the one not following the laws?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
There's also the AOSP, so manufacturers can install Android without Google's branded software.
I think Google has that agreement where a phone vendor is forced to install Google's crapware on every phone they sell, or decline that agreement.
E.g. Amazon refuses the agreement and can only sell Android computers without the Android branding and without Android's app store. By the way Amazon tablet computers seem a US-only or North America only affair. They don't include phones either.
This could be fine, but without Google "apps" you can't have the Google app store as well. Without the app store you are fucked and your customers are fucked e.g. bicycle deliveries are done with duopoly apps. Want to earn the poverty line on your bicycle? The computer programs are on the duopoly app stores.
Google even recently started to enforce "Google apps" compliance on phones. I would agree with you if they don't, including letting phone vendors bundle AOSP with the Google app store (or without and let the user choose on the same phone or among different models of phones)
You're kidding, right? The EU is bigger than the USA.
With a $2.8B fine, and another that could be higher, would it just be more profitable to stay away from the EU
Except that Google's international headquarters are in Ireland, so they are obligated to follow European law whether they like it or not.
Or they could do the unthinkable and just follow the law. What a radical concept!!
> if a manufacturer of an Android phone wants to offer different search engine options, Google should not interfere with that.
Google doesn't interfere with that.
Manufacturers are free to use Android through the AOSP. Amazon did this - their Fire phones didn't include Google's Play Store or other Google branded software.
If manufacturers want to include Google's suite of apps, they aren't restricted from also including rival apps.
Users are also able to choose different options both for the browser and search engine within the browser. Users want to use Google apps, manufacturers know this, so that's what the manufacturers include. If anything, the EU should be fining the manufacturers for not including other apps, or users for choosing to use Google apps.
... most people would actually gladly welcome that.
At first I thought you said, the EU would shut them down. Because that is the more likely of scenarios that people around here would like to see, so I instinctively assumed it at first.
It is not like a search engine is particularly hard to design anyway. With state support, we could install a perfect crawler at DE-CEX etc, and just grab the algorithms right from Google's local servers when they are seized.
We'd be using DuckDuckGo or something like that for a few months, and then forget Google's search ever existed.
Besides: Blackmailing law enforcement of nearly an entire continent, is most likely a major crime carrying a realprispn sentence. Esp when your own system is currenty partially out of order due to being ruled by certain somebody with a dog instead of hair on his head. ;)
Like an Iphone with headphone jack or Macintosh with USB ports?
The EU keeps changing the rules. and in this case are interpreting the law in a very out of the ordinary way. google is not a monopoly. nor is android. there's no lock-in. there's no restriction of choice.
they're punishing a grocery store, for having it's own sale advertisements inside their own store. they're punishing a gas station for selling their own brand of gas and soda. they're penalizing a veterinary service, for having their own prices and supplies listed on the wall. it's an -actual- insane interpretation of the law, and google should call them on it and pull out of the eu.
Google's international headquarters is in Dublin, Ireland. Google does business in the EU. Thus, Google... you have to follow European law. You have no choice about this, and in Europe "too big" is not an excuse for not following the law.
Commie!
notice how the usa isn't suing Google for the same thing? Google (eric schmidt etc) are gov. It's datamining built on what began as a cool search engine w/ Yahoo content.
Ted Kaczynski is a smart guy and putting aside his way of handling it, his revelation that internet and tech power could be used for bad is 100% merited.
What would be the use of it? Saving data just to save fucking data are you stupid?
Is it? Seems like it keeps getting smaller.
Amazon made the Fire phone, which included Amazon's app store. Developers could upload their apps to this store as well. Have an Android phone? You can install Amazon's app store. Here's a link:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/mas/...
Did I just save Google $2.8B?
I think Google should charge for any of their ad supported services and software when they're not allowed to advertise through them. Charge for search, charge for Android, etc. If Google gets fines and can't collect revenue then the users should pay for the services and software.
I don't like Google, but I like the E.U. even less.
If I were Google, I would tell the E.U. to stick it and would pay them nothing. Google doesn't need the E.U. but the E.U. does need Google.
Manufacturers aren't prohibited from installing their own software, including software which serves the same functions as Google's options
Except that if you want to install any Google apps, then you must install the entire suite and if you want to install competing apps then there are different licensing terms that cost more. And if you don't then it's impossible for your customers to install most third-party software because Google has managed to achieve an effective monopoly on distribution of most Android apps. And if you do install the Play store then you also need Play services, which run with insane permissions and hook into almost every app installed from Play.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
We have the internet without google. Who needs them, when they only serve themselves? That way of life might be honourable in the third world, like USA, but in Europe, profiting from others without giving back is despicable, so much that it is punishable.
How much market share do the Fire phones have? Is it enough that Google isn't an effective monopoly? How many apps are not available via the Amazon store that are available via Google Play?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Where, except in the EU, do people buy Android phones worth > $500?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
There are no socialist countries in the EU.
And if there where: it would not prevent anyone to compete with Google.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
But that's the beauty of the internet.
There is NO barrier from right now, someone creating their own search engine and offering it up in place of Google.
No regulation changes required.
They would have a difficult time competing with Google right now, due to being late to the game, likely not having the finances in place to create world wide server farms and all to handle the traffic, nor the long term knowledge base for algorithms, etc.
But, there is NOTHING in place now to prevent a start up from trying to compete.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
With a $2.8B fine, and another that could be higher, would it just be more profitable to stay away from the EU where they appear to keep their economy afloat via litigation (gross overgeneralization, but you know what I mean)?
I'm not a fan of either Google or the EU. That being said, the EU has laws. If you want to do business in the EU then follow them. Google is free to not conduct business in the EU. I don't like (most) of the EU and as such I wouldn't try to run a business there. I wish the US would start enforcing their antitrust laws like yue EU. Seemed like we punished Microsoft in the past for things that we turn a blind eye on these days. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook all represent anti consumer power concentration. I'm not a lawyer so I can't tell you that all of those companies are breaking antitrust laws, however I am a voting citizen and I think its time to start passing and enforcing laws that prohibit anti competitive and anti consumerist mega corporations from abusing our country.
it's still noise level...
nothing to see here - move along
Well, they seem to be just changing the laws under them over and over again...becoming more onerous each time.
Yep, companies keep doing increasingly dickish things os the EU regulations get tighter.
This is like the EU is trying to step up and dictate what a private company's business model is.
Yep the EU is dictating that being massive asshats is not a valid business model. I'm cool with that.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Yeah, those edit buttons are extremely handy arenâ(TM)t they?
-- Cheers!
Because Google can do that much better. But companies that donâ(TM)t adhere to EU laws get fined. Also EU based companies, like Apple for instance.
-- Cheers!
Bullshit. Itâ(TM)s just that American companies tend to think they own the whole fucking pkanet, like all Americans do.
-- Cheers!
Thatâ(TM)s normal. If you get a ticket for speeding and pay the fine, are you allowed to go full throttle everywhere you go? Thought not.
-- Cheers!
They did exist but Nokia killed them in a succesful suicide attempt.
-- Cheers!
We donâ(TM)t. We pay them in euros or pounds or other European money. Never in dollars.
-- Cheers!
Shills be shillin'
LOL.
Person 1: here are some facts you can verify. What do you think?
Person 2: you're a moron.
Democrat partisans sure do hate socialism.
All those things you mentioned, you either have, or are gonna need eventually.
Powwwwww!!!!
Nail, meet head. Powwwww.
Notice how when you mention search the first thing that comes to mind is google.
Those other things you mentioned, you never named a COMPANY. You just named the services and good they provide.
Google has so much power and leverage that you don't just search for something, you google it.
The examples you listed don't even apply to this situation.
USA?
I see the problem here.
The USA is unsure of how to deal with governments and government policies that are beneficial to the people, and less so to the corporations.
It turns out that other countries actually have elected officials who are "By the people, for the people" rather than being bought by campaign bribes.
HEY USA, Try democracy, freedom of speech.
Europe has plenty of competitive web services. You just don't know what they are because they aren't aimed at you.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
And yet socialism has allowed the USA to have the biggest military in the world.
Everyone is forced to pay taxes, they have no say on how they get spent, including on the military.
Who says socialism does not work.
This has been in the works for the better part of a decade. The EU agreed some changes with them, but they didn't happen. This is really the last resort.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Perhaps they should not have started a business in a place they where unwilling to follow the law.
To be fair:
1) They started doing business in the EU in the late 1990s, before the EU created any of these laws.
2) The EU seems to think its laws apply to EU citizens who are physically outside the EU. If a French citizen in New York uses a web site made by a US company and hosted in the USA, then the EU claims its laws apply. If the EU asserts jurisdiction over *all* countries, then you can't blame a company for choosing the wrong country to be in.
Unless there's a patent blocking it.
See the EFF's list of missing products.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
would it just be more profitable to stay away from the EU
So just to be clear what you're saying is that staying away from a rich market twice the size of the USA is more profitable because of measly $2.8bn fine? I take it you've never actually seen a financial report before. You know that fine is less than Google's EU tax avoidance scheme right? A company that made $26bn last year, a large chunk of which was in EU business.
But yeah, let's make knee jerk reactions about something which we know nothing about because of ${scarybignumber}
If the EU wants a search without the things Google offers and requires of its users, why don't they just build a state sponsored service
I'm going to go with anti-trust abuse, you know ... kind of the entire point which you are complaining about.
What is preventing the EU from coming up with a better: hardware combination? Better search engine? Better operating system?
Monopolies abusing their power?
Running a personal data-mining business in a region of the world with strict policy laws? What could possibly go wrong?
That's a completely different issue. The EU is fining Google for having better products and services than everyone else. This has absolutely nothing to do with data mining, with which the EU seems to have few complaints.
This once again shows that the EU's priorities are WAY out of whack, as they should still be chasing Microsoft for continuing to abuse its monopoly positions (note the plural) unabated.
It's true - we do live in the best of all possible worlds.
Thank goodness the Status Quo is just so darned perfect!
How much market share do the Fire phones have?
I don't know. Suppose it is very low.
Did Google do something criminal to make Amazon have low market share? If so, I think we would all agree that they shoudl be punished for the crime.
What if Google has most of the market because they make a better product for less money? Does the government need to force Google to force users to use a product they do not like?
Well, we pretty much do.
Enjoy your Teletext terminals, weâ(TM)re outta here.
> Google doesn't interfere with that.
Oh but they do. Otherwise you'll be selling a device with no access to google services. Which lets face it ... you are shooting yourself in the foot here.
They pay Mozilla to be the default search engine
They also pay billions to Apple to be the default search engine
And plethora of others.
You what again?
They could also play by the rules, and avoid the fine while still making more money compared to not selling anything at all.
As a person who had to read the last three versions of the rules, and try figure out how to comply with them: Are you sure the army of lawyers telling the army of engineers to change billions of lines of code on a tight deadline every few years is a smart use of money? The EU is not that large in population, influence, money spent, etc.
Tell that to the formerly state-employed workers here. In the last decades, most of the services have been privatized. In the US, you have a socialized post office. Here its private.
Things change.
> They would have a difficult time competing with Google right now, due to being late to the game, likely not having the finances in place to create world wide server farms and all to handle the traffic, nor the long term knowledge base for algorithms, etc.
Although it would be a lot easier for them to compete if Google pulled their operations out of the EU as you suggested.
So, basically, the complaint is "whaaaaaa, they won't let us use the play store without installing Google stuff!!"?
And this is supposedly illegal?
The mind boggles. Maybe someone should tell them that there are dozens of alternate stores out there, like Amazon, Fdroid, and Aptoide. Also ask them why the fuck they would expect the google app store to be available on non-google devices. Do they expect the Apple app store to be available on Solaris?
Yeah. Makes more sense for them to just jack up the price of their services in Europe, anyway, and pass the cost of the fine on to consumers.
American here. We do run the world!
Typical ignorant retort from a socialist. "If only we did socialism correctly we'd have utopia!" You idiots fail at everything everywhere then try to tell everyone it wasn't real socialism. Fuck off.
The lack of a barrier is the PROBLEM with the internet. The only hope for a small company looking to compete with Google is to identify a niche to protect them from Google; otherwise it is automatically a non-starter. You can't make yourself a distinctive product with no areas of the internet that are in themselves distinctive. Adding regulations, such as severely hampering Google's ability to do business in the EU, and therefore having smaller companies that specialize in the EU, is the only way to both encourage small companies to form and to encourage innovation. A person could start a search engine that pays more attention to European needs I suppose but that's not likely to be compelling on its own and once successful it is very easy for Google to simply emulate without the wants and needs of a nation enforced with laws.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
So, which country in the EU is socialist?
And which socialist country has laws that block companies from competing with google?
Fuck off? Fuck yourself you uneducated clod.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Says the expert from the country that has the world's greatest proofs (with the smallest hands and mind) that the will and demand of the people is an invalid argument.
And this is coming from the country that had the former greatest proof (with the smallest moustache).
Basically, you argued that they were both the best choices. And that Khomeini was too, by the way.
iOS has a small market share, it does not offer all of the same functionality and it is only offered through a single hardware vendor. It's not truly a competitor. Moreover, from the point of the phone vendor, which is where Google abused its monopoly, it is not an alternative atall: Apple doesn't offer iOS to third parties.
WTF did /. link the Axios summary?
Why stop there? Link the reddit link.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
With a $2.8B fine, and another that could be higher, would it just be more profitable to stay away from the EU where they appear to keep their economy afloat via litigation (gross overgeneralization, but you know what I mean)?
The US is the most litigious country in the world, where people can make millions by getting their lips burned by a hot cup of coffee at starbucks, which is why the US is plastered with ridiculous warning signs all over the place. So I guess you know best.
But it is good that you're being a real patriot defending the honor of US companies against blackmailing and leeching EU bureaucrats. Too bad Google is not very patriotic and moving all of their billions in revenue through Ireland to pay almost nothing in taxes... anywhere else.
Manufacturers aren't prohibited from installing their own software, including software which serves the same functions as Google's options
Except that if you want to install any Google apps, then you must install the entire suite and if you want to install competing apps then there are different licensing terms that cost more. And if you don't then it's impossible for your customers to install most third-party software because Google has managed to achieve an effective monopoly on distribution of most Android apps. And if you do install the Play store then you also need Play services, which run with insane permissions and hook into almost every app installed from Play.
How is this any different than Apple? You don't have an option of not installing Apple apps on any of their mobile devices, and they most certainly have an effective monopoly on distribution of most iOS apps. Or will your response simply be that Apple has less market share so its ok for them to have a monopoly on app distribution and provide no ability to run iOS without Apple apps?
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
Cheaper to obey the law.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Android has a major competitor with iOS.
Classic misunderstanding of anti-trust. The legal yardstick is "market power" not "does Apple somehow manage to defend its sliver."
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
These billion dollar fines are a great way to keep the European government funded
It's a drop in the bucket. This is about attending to the interests of their citizens.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
that's 1/4th of one quarter's earnings...cost of doing business noise level
Apparent that you never ran a business or participated in one in any meaningful way.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
This is why we need e.g. linux phones but they don't exist yet.
If there were sufficient demand for them, they would exist.
The manufacturing economies are not there. But a law requiring boot loader unlocking would fix that. Android can be cloned, it is freely available, Google prevents this from gaining traction by denying access to its software ecosystem. Another law would prevent that, there is considerable legal precedent for it. I sense, this is the direction it's going. Eurocrats may not now know what a boot loader is, but they soon will.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
ALL OF THEM
Loser
I'm glad /. doesn't support unicode properly. It makes spotting the i-tards easier.
When you sue the capitalist for gibs
wrongo again
nothing to see here - move along
Let's try some stuff here.
I was a developer at Opera. Until our company was mismanaged and driven into the ground by a profiteering board of directors hellbent on seeing ROI instead of long term growth through good products, we did make a better web browser than most. That wasn't EU but was Norway.
My drinking buddies worked for companies like Fast Search and Transfer which was consumed by Microsoft and ended up working on Bing... I know that's not really a better search engine... in fact it's horrible. I searched for "When is mother's day" on it using Cortana the other day and it returned nothing but incest porn links. So I'll assume it has a few bugs or that Bing is being use mostly by German politicians which is driving up ratings on certain web sites.
I heard of some operating system made by a Finnish guy... I can't remember his name or what the OS is called, but I'm sure someone around here may have heard of it.
Of course, there's also this Qt thing... made on the same floor of the same building as the Opera Web Browser. And the KDE thing which was made by a German guy who later worked at Qt. And oh... there's WebKit which was made by another German guy. And there's this thing called the World Wide Web made by Sir Timmy himself while working in Geneva.
There's also this chip thing called ARM which seems to be catching on. It's pretty much running the entire mobile and IOT world. And then there's Atmel who probably still sells more CPUs than the next 5 CPU producers combined.
Of course, for 10+ years the entire mobile phone market outside of the US was dominated by Nokia and Symbian... which to be fair was some of the worst software ever written, but it did have market dominance by a large scale.
Then there are things like major components you use. Like VideoLAN which is mostly french. There's GStreamer which is (or was) led by a Dutch guy.
There is plenty of stuff going on out here. I can write for a long time on the topic.
I am however against this lawsuit because I feel that it's nothing more than a fund raiser from the EU. In addition, they love to mention that Google lost the 2.3 billion euro. It says nothing about whether they've actually agreed to pay it or whether they decided it was cheaper to just waste more time in court. It's not like a credit reporting agency could really force them to pay. Could you imagine Dunn and Bradstreet lowering their rating over something like this?
Even if the EU fined Google 50 billion Euro, Google would just ignore it and move on. It's some piss-ant kid trying to build his resume by winning huge lawsuits against Google.
Let's be honest... even if Google did pay the 2.3 billion Euro... was that even a punishment to them? They can probably lose 5 billion every 10 years to the EU and it wouldn't make a difference to them. But also notice that no company... not Google, Apple or anyone else will ever pay a 2.3 billion euro fine and if they did, they'd pay it in pennies.
So the lawsuit is bullshit. They're doing it as a fund raiser. They're seeing how much money they can put in their coffers. Remember, if they win 2.3 billion Euro off of Google. So long as Google owes them that money, they can still spend it because they'll print the money (symbolically) and from a credit perspective justify it from the note.
Besides... it's not like they'll actually pay it... and if they do, they'll pay it over 50 years with a 0.1% interest rate.
Winning the money isn't the same as collecting it and I'm pretty sure it costs less than 2.8 billion euro to run the collectors around in circles for a few decades.
Google already got crushed in China and effectively contained in Russia. If it loses EU, it's left with Americas, Africa and some parts of Asia.
And anything that is created to fill the void left by google will rapidly grow to be able to compete with google, as we have seen with tencent's services in Asia and yandex in Russia.
This is literally how Tencent and Baidu became the giants they are today. Tencent is bigger than facebook in terms of market cap last time I checked.
Pretty sure google really, REALLY doesn't want similar European giants to be formed, or even worse, cede the huge EU market to Chinese giants, effectively surrendering world leadership in search in the process.
These fines are not even one percent of the yearly budget (145bn EUR), as they're paid over many years.
It is for now. It's shrinking however as a portion of entire world and the path of decline doesn't seem to let up.
Ha ha ha ha ...
You must have had a bad school education ...
However you have a nice nick, if the /. number would be 6502, I would consider to buy it.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Please go ahead, then the rest of the world may have more choice from companies that actually cared about our data and privacy (i.e. bound by GDPR).
Just sign a blank check and hand it to the EU. Someone has to pay for all that free healthcare and college. You can call it "pre-fines" to hedge against laws that will be passed in the future. As long as Google can make $1 after all the fines, there's no real problem.
And you think that 6% of annual earnings is noise? Don't make me laugh, poser, you never read an income statement in your life.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Yeah, those nasty regulators, stopping me and Vito from protecting our local shopkeepers against damage to their businesses.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
The EU is fining Google for abusing their monopoly, not for the simple fact of being a monopoly.
Eat the rich.
But it seems, being a literal data whore, is precisely what you want, and what you hence so aggressively and millitantly defend.
Why else would you ignore that precise distinction many of them have over Google?
I did not think when I said that. I did not intend to insult you that way. I have no excuse. *performs seppuku*
The N900 was one. The N900 was even a bit popular, but then Microsoft stepped in and bought Nokia. So yes, the demand is there. And no, corporations don't let it happen.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
fully deductible...and, look at alphabet stock value over time...blip at best look at top line revenue, not earnings, to gauge impact note: I am not an investor in that stock
nothing to see here - move along
Suppose you were a small entrepreneur and come up with a great product. You start to manufacture it, and suddenly Microsoft (for example) comes along and says "I want a license to brand it in my name. I want to buy your company for your ideas/product. You don't want to sell. So what does Microsoft do. Given lots of $$$, they buy your product, copy it with a few changes (maybe even cheapening it or modifying it slightly), and suddenly, Microsoft is your competitor, selling a knock-off of your product under their name and brand. Two years later, you are out of business.
The European Union's objective is to level the playing field. If you are in business xyz, then do not, under xyz charter, also compete with abc,def,ghi... who are in different industries.
You, xyz has amounts of money your competition does not. You drive the competitor out of business via protracted lawsuits. If your corporate charter is for doing "search engines". then that's it. Do not, as your charter is defined, become a hardware manufacturer which also makes products that divulge every purchasing action you make, or social contact you meet to discuss.
Wow, almost sounds like the POTUS effect is what they are guarding against.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Right, you're not an investor, you're an idiot. Money isn't free, deductible or not.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
you go right on believing that...who do you think pays them? hint - not the investor.
nothing to see here - move along
Bing, Ask.com, Yahoo, Duck Duck Go, Yandex, Baidu.
What is google supposed to do, slow down on indexing and making things better so that their competitors can catch up?
Thought everyone had enough sense to get out of that. The EU isn't serving Europe's best interest.
Always wondered about it. They had a vote years ago and it seems to me they didn't have enough votes to ratify the EU as an entity. Didn't hear what happened though they still seem to be here.
Socialism is banned under EU rules. Unlike the US, which leads the world in protectionism and government subsidies for corporations.
What if Google has most of the market because they make a better product for less money?
That depends. Are they making it for less money because they're subsidising it with income from other products? If so, it may count as dumping and so is illegal (for good reason: it means that no company that doesn't have an independent revenue stream can compete).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Just try taking a working android phone to china. google play services just grinds away trying to connect, it can't it's blocked, draining you battery. Even if you don't (and can't) use any google apps.