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EU Expected To Hit Google with Another Massive Antitrust Fine (fortune.com)
If you thought the European Commission was done hitting Google with massive fines, think again. From a report: Having already whacked the U.S. company with a $2.7 billion fine in 2017 (for disadvantaging comparison-shopping rivals in its search results) and a $5 billion fine last year (for disadvantaging software rivals in the Android ecosystem,) the Commission will reportedly issue another financial penalty next week. The fine's imminent nature was reported Friday by the Financial Times, citing three unnamed sources. The Commission and Google both declined to provide comment on the report. It is all about Google's restrictions on the "AdSense for Search" boxes that third-party websites use to make it easier for users to search their sites. Searches conducted through the boxes bring up Google ads and, with Google having such a dominant position in the European online search advertising market, the Commission warned the company in 2016 that it believed the company was illegally abusing its position.
honestly, this is not a cost of doing business. block access to EU countries. see what happens.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I don't have a problem with fines per se. But the problem with the EU approach is they don't state exactly how to stop the behavior. They instead require companies to propose a solution, and they will reply whether or not they think the solution is good enough. If they don't think it's good enough, the company has to go back to the drawing board, come up with a new solution, and propose that. Repeat.
If you're going to fine a behavior, then you need to exactly define what behavior will cause the fine. That way companies can avoid that precise behavior to avoid the fine. If you don't want companies collecting personal info, but collecting personal info is a requisite for doing business (e.g. credit card payments), then either you need to state exactly under what situations and for how long you can collect personal info, or you need to prohibit the practice (and credit card payments) entirely. You can't just say "don't be evil" and expect companies to be able to comply.
The EU approach allows a degree of capriciousness on the part of government regulators which makes it extremely difficult for companies to come into and remain in compliance with EU anti-trust laws. I can understand why the EU wants to do it that way - it prevents loopholes. But the economic drag caused by that uncertainty about what exactly is/isn't allowed by the law far outweighs the benefit of not having loopholes.
Europe is already making a mint from unfair trade agreements with us. They pocket a cool $150 billion every single year. Just to be clear, remember Bernie's "free college" program that was widely mocked as unaffordable? That was $60 billion a year. Trump's wall? $25 billion one-time. 150 big ones still isn't enough for them. Even with all this fat cash, they can't find enough money in the cupboard to pay for their fair share of NATO. Why are we even in NATO any more? It should have thrown itself a victory party after the Soviet Union fell and been disbanded. Most members can't fight an invading girl scout troop successfully, much less make a meaningful contribution to collective defense. How about contributing instead of taking? From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs, isn't that the quintessential European sentiment?
What I heard was, we pay for their shit and in return we get compliance with our wishes. This hasn't been true for decades if it was ever true at all. Instead, we get overtly hostile acts like this. And before anyone starts, this didn't begin with Trump. It goes back a long way.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!