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.

Comments

On the selection of villains

[rmdingler]

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.

No matter where you're from, it seems likely there exists more animus against a successful foreign company dominating a local market.

In the US, for instance, our current angst with Chinese domination in certain tech areas is rearing its ugly head as persecution of Huawei.

Re: $1.7 billion = small potatoes

[Anonymous Coward]

Breaking them up. Anything less will be brushed off by senior execs. Their stock price fluctuates by more than that every day.

Google, FB, and a few others need some very serious anti-trust review.

Re:Expect more fines - particularly if the UK leav

[Miles_O'Toole]

Unlike the US, there are still places in Europe where size, wealth and power don't provide immunity from prosecution when a corporation violates the law.

Re:Expect more fines - particularly if the UK leav

[mjwx]

Unlike the US, there are still places in Europe where size, wealth and power don't provide immunity from prosecution when a corporation violates the law.

The thing is, in the US regulators are designed and tasked with protecting US companies from prosecution, as we've seen with the FAA, Boeing and the 737-MAX fiasco. This means they assume that everywhere else is the same. Its quite inconceivable to some Americans that the EU applies the same rules and regulations to EU companies as they do to foreign ones, ergo in order to quell the congnitive dissonance there must be an anti-US conspiracy.