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Google Fined Nearly $1.7 Billion For Ad Practices That Violated European Antitrust Laws (washingtonpost.com)
European regulators on Wednesday slapped Google with a roughly $1.7 billion fine on charges that its advertising practices violated local antitrust laws, marking the third time in as many years that the region's watchdogs have penalized the U.S. tech giant for harming competition and consumers. The Washington Post: Margrethe Vestager, the European Union's top competition commissioner, announced the punishment at a news conference, accusing Google of engaging in "illegal practices" in a bid to "cement its dominant market position" in the search and advertising markets. The new penalty adds to Google's costly headaches in Europe, where Vestager now has fined the tech giant more than $9 billion in total for a series of antitrust violations. Her actions stand in stark contrast to the United States, where regulators -- facing a flood of complaints that big tech companies have become too big and powerful -- have not brought a single antitrust case against Google or any of its peers in recent years, reflecting a widening transatlantic schism over Silicon Valley and its business practices.
Nothing will change until some of the higher-ups at these big tech companies are jailed, or killed.
The Data Care Act would be one such item, introduced by DEMOCRATS. The Republicans are against it and claim it is "detrimental" to the "free market". And the fines are working. Right to be Forgotten, for example has had Google make massive changes to how they operate in the EU. GDPR changed how Google, Facebook, etc all operate in the EU. Democrats protect privacy and the consumer. Republicans not so much.