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Google Fined Nearly $1.7 Billion For Ad Practices That Violated European Antitrust Laws (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by msmash on from the eu-strikes-again dept.

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.

13 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. $1.7 billion = small potatoes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Nothing will change until some of the higher-ups at these big tech companies are jailed, or killed.

    1. Re: $1.7 billion = small potatoes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:$1.7 billion = small potatoes by OneHundredAndTen · · Score: 2

      Indeed. Forcing Google to fork over $1.7B is like forcing me to fork over a couple of hundred dollars - it would annoy me, but it wouldn't compel me to change whatever ways that resulted in that fine, especially if they contribute to my income.

  2. On the selection of villains by rmdingler · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:On the selection of villains by StormReaver · · Score: 2

      Google and Facebook, with all of their market penetration, can't hold a candle to the threat that Microsoft still poses to the PC industry. Microsoft is still dictating terms to hardware manufacturers (TPM, Restricted Boot), and are still able to do unfettered harm to users without so much as giving a single shit.

      The EU is still barking up the wrong tree.

    2. Re:On the selection of villains by thegarbz · · Score: 2

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

      It always seems like that to the outside but that is a misanalysis. The EU quite happily fines EU companies constantly. The difference is it doesn't make the news outside of the EU since it's not newsworthy, and also due to relative sizes the relative fines (which take into account both market effects as well as ability to pay) are usually significantly lower.

      Now while it does look like Google is a healthy target for the EU the reasoning behind it makes perfect sense too, but not for the reasons you think. Unchecked and unregulated free market economics is what allowed US and Chinese based companies to grow to the incredible size that they do. This is actively prevented in much of the rest of the world. These large companies suddenly doing businesses the same way as they are used to in Europe find themselves under extreme scrutiny thanks to their massive size and stronger local laws.

      For example: The USA has anti-trust laws. But unlike the EU the anti-trust laws need to directly show a financial impact to consumers which makes it very hard to break those laws simply by using abusing market power to sink competitors. In other parts of the world anti-trust laws are focused more exclusively on abusing power which means effects on other businesses are equally punished (after all lack of competition indirectly affects consumers), and this is what Google repeatedly gets in trouble for.

      Hence it looks like USA based companies are unfairly targeted, while the reality is that's just a shallow observation.

  3. Re:How much did Google make off those ads? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The fine is calculated as the loss to other companies and economies from their actions, while also considering their ability to pay. The fine is just the first stage though; if they don't stop doing it there will be further fines and even legal action against individuals.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  4. Re:Obligatory... by johnsie · · Score: 2

    https://myactivity.google.com/

  5. Re:How much did Google make off those ads? by mlw4428 · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  6. Re:Expect more fines - particularly if the UK leav by Miles_O'Toole · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
  7. Re:How much did Google make off those ads? by omnichad · · Score: 4, Funny

    Don't be silly. If I was in a class action lawsuit, I would at least have a $10 check or some coupons to show for it.

  8. Re:Expect more fines - particularly if the UK leav by mjwx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  9. Re:How much did Google make off those ads? by mlw4428 · · Score: 2

    State privacy laws? You mean like the ones my state doesn't have? Where does it "gut" any existing law? Nothing in the law says that states can't add additional requirements and add MORE privacy-friendly laws ontop of this one. Or are you saying states should be free to not give a fuck? Because that basically makes my point: Republicans (aka "Red States") don't give a fuck. That's why my state doesn't really have data privacy laws.