That depends entirely on how you define a market. Sure iTunes have a monopoly in the iTunes market but does it have a dominant market share in digital music sales? Probably yes. But does it have a dominant market share in music sales digital or otherwise?
Also how do define the limits to a market, is it global? or is it EU only? or US only? or is it 1st world countries only?
A lot of these questions depends on in which jurisdiction you are and what sort of business you are running and how that relates to the market because will the EU think it relevant that you don't have a global dominant market share if you have say a 98% market share within EU?
Something as heavy handed as"not showing competitors" isn't required to be open to an antitrust case, whats required is a lot less severe behavior.
The only thing that is required is that you use your dominant market position to gain benefits in a different market, so that means unless Google treats everybody else exactly the same as it treats it's own products or it treats it's own products worse then Google is using it's dominant market share in search to gain an advantage in whatever else and are thus in violation of antitrust laws.
Because the nose is typically at the opposite end of the craft relative to the engine which will still be whats producing thrust, sure you can do as has been done in the new BSG for example turn 180 on a dime and shoot whats behind you while letting momentum carry you forward but the fact still remains that whenever the craft is using it's engine it will be going somewhere nose first.
Yes once we invent space warfare on that scale we will probably go back to battleship type of craft.
In space you don't have most of the limitations on armor that a surface vessel has, you can basically tack on as much as you want, what will suffer is your ability to accelerate unless you mount a bigger engine.
The reason Battleships was obsoleted was the range of big guns contra the range of aircraft, big guns are limited in range by line of sight, on earth that means the curvature of the planet among other things, this is obviously a much smaller problem in space and for the same reason as armor you can keep tacking on bigger and bigger guns as long as you accept the loss of acceleration or fit a bigger engine, your ship won't sink because it weighs too much.
Strike craft simply won't be able to carry big enough armaments to punch a hole in the armor so their only use will possibly be reconnaissance and payload delivery and you don't need a dedicated aircraft carrier for reconnaissance that and for payload delivery missiles will most likely be a better fit than strike craft for several reasons.
What court is gonna buy "oops we forgot" from anyone?
The EU Commission sent MSFT to the court over their monopoly abusing practices, the courts told MSFT that you cannot do that it's against the law, here's a fine and you need to do these things to not get anymore fines.
MSFT agreed to abide by those terms so it does not matter if it was intentional or just some random techie screwing up.
What matters is that MSFT agreed(not that it would have mattered if they didn't, the courts ruling is absolute, MSFT can either stop doing business within the EU or abide by the ruling) to abide by the court ruling and then you better implement some routines to make sure a screw up doesn't happen, they failed to comply with the court's ruling so yes the deserve a fine regardless of the reason for their failed compliance.
They had their chance to fix the fuck up after the original ruling, and if you're a multibillion dollar corporation you are supposed to have processes to ensure that these sort of fuck ups don't make it into the finished product, if they do you're liable to get slapped.
Hitler made the traditional mistake of not listening to his generals/admirals, the Battle of Britain could have been won, the strategy was just taking effect around the time Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to cease operations.
Political machinations was also the major reason the evacuation of Dunkirk even happened.
Hitler did not listen to his generals about the best strategy for invading Russia and ignored their reservations about lack of winter equipment(Hitler thought the invasion of Russia would be over before the winter struck, his generals knew better).
Hitler was also notoriously fond of all sort of "wunderwaffe" resulting in the expenditure of resources on incredibly impractical or outright impossible projects.
EU antitrust legislation isn't focused on monopolies, it's focused on dominant market share which Google certainly have. Yes users have a choice of search engine but Google competitors dun have a choice in which search engine users use and therefore Google derives an advantage in a different market when they link those other services to the search engine.
No it's not illegal to have a dominant market share, it's illegal in the EU to use that dominant market share to gain an advantage in a different market.
No if Google tells the EU to fuck off then the EU is going to start seizing Google assets both within EU and wherever else they can get project influence and eventually start issuing international arrest warrants for top Google executives(and arrest any Google executives that enter EU), simply put they are going to make life VERY difficult for Google.
Thats not the issue, sure users can switch search engines of course but companies competing with Google cannot choose what search engines the users go to and hence they are competing at a disadvantage against Google if Google promotes it's competing service in the search and since Google has a dominant market share such a behavior is prohibited business behavior withing the EU.
You are wrong, Google most definitely have a dominant market share in search which is what matters in EU antitrust legislation.
Therefore Google is forbidden from using that advantage in other markets such as map services, advertisement or whatever else they can think of.
By EU standards Google don't need to have a monopoly to be covered by antitrust legislation, they just has to have a dominant market position(the lowest market share so far that has been found to be dominant was 39.7%) and Google certainly has at least that in search, thus they are required to follow EU antitrust legislation.
Because within a nation the governments power(within the limitations set by the population in case of democracies) is absolute, they can write pretty much whatever laws they want and thus impose whatever fines they want. As a company you can either choose to adhere to the rules and regulations set by the local government or you can choose to not do business within their borders. The EU is a pretty sizable market so everyone wants to do business there
Also the point of these fines is that they have to hurt more than what the corporation gain from breaking the regulations or they are powerless. Also your complaint about it being just another way to block foreign business simply isn't true, so far the biggest fines handed out to a corporation by the Commission was to a European based company and even by frequency the Commission fines a lot more European based corporations than it does foreign ones.
The original reason for fines being on the global revenue was so that the Commission could fine European countries for misbehaving when doing business elsewhere.
Personally I think it's entirely fair because foreign corporations can always choose not to do business within the EU and thus avoid the regulations if they don't like them, of course that would hurt more than paying the fines...
No not really, if you do that there will be so much noise contamination that no one will hear a thing(except for the guy trying to sneak up on you), you don't use active sonar until you have an actual target because it's detectable from a lot further away than it can detect things. If anyone was stupid enough to do that it's basically Christmas for an attacker, just send a whole bunch of sonar homing torpedoes(some very basic targeting selection can identify and ignore the buoys) in the general direction and watch things go boom.
Besides, an AIP submarine hugging the bottom is difficult to detect even with active sonar because things like bottom composition and variances in the salt content of the seawater in the path of the sonar beam can throw off the accuracy of the sonar beam so that even if you get a positive detection(which is not a given) you actually have very little idea where the target actually is.
I would rather argue that parking a carrier off somebody's coast and start lobbing missiles at them is basically asking for an all out war if they have the capability to retaliate, thus the question will not be whether we wanna shoot back because the answer will always be yes because it is already way past the point of no return when the missiles are already flying.
The US however have 2 questions they will be asking themselves, do we think they can sink a carrier and if yes what do we do when that happens.
Same point can be made for Pearl Harbor, US and UK put an embargo and blockade on oil destined for Imperial Japan and Japan couldn't produce enough from local sources so the Japanese got desperate and the surprise assault on Pearl Harbor was the result of that.
As long as they keep lobbying to increase copyright duration I personally find that to be a deal breaker, the original 25 years was ok for it's time, these days everything produced is expected to show a profit within the year so copyright should be limited to 3-5 years after creation/publication.
Copyright was never made for the benefit of the creators, it was made for the benefit of the general public by giving the creators a monopoly on distribution for a limited time.
Personally I find these constant extensions whenever the copyright on mickey mouse etc risks running out is against the spirit of that "for a limited time" and as such in my opinion they have voided any right to protection under the law, hence I will choose not to respect their distribution monopoly. If that would eventually cause them to go bankrupt from that then so much better, then maybe what comes after will be a system that actually works to the benefit of all sides involved.
What you're claiming is like claiming that someone has an expectation of privacy in public if they speak a different language compared to the national norm, it takes deliberate effort to intercept that discussion as well. You have to understand the language spoken.
Except that an EULA is not a legally binding agreement in a large part of the EU, and also many nations in the EU does not permit signing away some rights enshrined in law even with informed consent.
Yes MS has a definite monopoly on the PC and once MS starts to peddle ads directly in windows you can expect there to be antitrust lawsuits and huge EC fines unless they let everyone else in on the deal.
Personally I don't really have a big problem with the ads themselves as long as they are not intrusive or possible attack vectors but I definitely have zero tolerance for the whole tracking part.
For your A the the ad providers can expect there to be lawsuits right on their tails as soon as they take that path and eventually maybe even regulation.
For your B things will work until everybody copies IE which will happen as soon as everybody else see that they continue to respect IE's DNT and then things will go down the exact same route as A.
For your C when the ad providers that selectively only disregard IE DNT they will most likely be served with big lawsuits from MS and once that happens every other browser will promptly copy IE.
With your C do you seriously believe that the ad providers would restore status quo if IE dropped DNT as default? That (pretty much) never happens, once they stop respecting DNT they will do it across the board and will never go back because there is no incentive to do so, the only way to get back to status quo is with severe government regulation and even then only with much grumbling and only after the government has made an example out of someone.
The ad providers have better start thinking on the next scheme for foisting ads on everyone because the current one is bound to go the way of popup ads, probably sooner rather than later.
Actually the first prosecutor decided to charge Assange but got overruled by their boss and later that boss was overruled by their boss("clear across Sweden").
So it's not so much about " a prosecutor clear across Sweden" deciding to pick the case up on a whim(or out of malice, spite etc.) and more about the case moving up the chain of command.
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That depends entirely on how you define a market. Sure iTunes have a monopoly in the iTunes market but does it have a dominant market share in digital music sales? Probably yes. But does it have a dominant market share in music sales digital or otherwise?
Also how do define the limits to a market, is it global? or is it EU only? or US only? or is it 1st world countries only?
A lot of these questions depends on in which jurisdiction you are and what sort of business you are running and how that relates to the market because will the EU think it relevant that you don't have a global dominant market share if you have say a 98% market share within EU?
Something as heavy handed as"not showing competitors" isn't required to be open to an antitrust case, whats required is a lot less severe behavior.
The only thing that is required is that you use your dominant market position to gain benefits in a different market, so that means unless Google treats everybody else exactly the same as it treats it's own products or it treats it's own products worse then Google is using it's dominant market share in search to gain an advantage in whatever else and are thus in violation of antitrust laws.
Because the nose is typically at the opposite end of the craft relative to the engine which will still be whats producing thrust, sure you can do as has been done in the new BSG for example turn 180 on a dime and shoot whats behind you while letting momentum carry you forward but the fact still remains that whenever the craft is using it's engine it will be going somewhere nose first.
Yes once we invent space warfare on that scale we will probably go back to battleship type of craft.
In space you don't have most of the limitations on armor that a surface vessel has, you can basically tack on as much as you want, what will suffer is your ability to accelerate unless you mount a bigger engine.
The reason Battleships was obsoleted was the range of big guns contra the range of aircraft, big guns are limited in range by line of sight, on earth that means the curvature of the planet among other things, this is obviously a much smaller problem in space and for the same reason as armor you can keep tacking on bigger and bigger guns as long as you accept the loss of acceleration or fit a bigger engine, your ship won't sink because it weighs too much.
Strike craft simply won't be able to carry big enough armaments to punch a hole in the armor so their only use will possibly be reconnaissance and payload delivery and you don't need a dedicated aircraft carrier for reconnaissance that and for payload delivery missiles will most likely be a better fit than strike craft for several reasons.
What court is gonna buy "oops we forgot" from anyone?
The EU Commission sent MSFT to the court over their monopoly abusing practices, the courts told MSFT that you cannot do that it's against the law, here's a fine and you need to do these things to not get anymore fines.
MSFT agreed to abide by those terms so it does not matter if it was intentional or just some random techie screwing up.
What matters is that MSFT agreed(not that it would have mattered if they didn't, the courts ruling is absolute, MSFT can either stop doing business within the EU or abide by the ruling) to abide by the court ruling and then you better implement some routines to make sure a screw up doesn't happen, they failed to comply with the court's ruling so yes the deserve a fine regardless of the reason for their failed compliance.
They had their chance to fix the fuck up after the original ruling, and if you're a multibillion dollar corporation you are supposed to have processes to ensure that these sort of fuck ups don't make it into the finished product, if they do you're liable to get slapped.
Hitler made the traditional mistake of not listening to his generals/admirals, the Battle of Britain could have been won, the strategy was just taking effect around the time Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to cease operations.
Political machinations was also the major reason the evacuation of Dunkirk even happened.
Hitler did not listen to his generals about the best strategy for invading Russia and ignored their reservations about lack of winter equipment(Hitler thought the invasion of Russia would be over before the winter struck, his generals knew better).
Hitler was also notoriously fond of all sort of "wunderwaffe" resulting in the expenditure of resources on incredibly impractical or outright impossible projects.
EU antitrust legislation isn't focused on monopolies, it's focused on dominant market share which Google certainly have. Yes users have a choice of search engine but Google competitors dun have a choice in which search engine users use and therefore Google derives an advantage in a different market when they link those other services to the search engine.
No it's not illegal to have a dominant market share, it's illegal in the EU to use that dominant market share to gain an advantage in a different market.
No if Google tells the EU to fuck off then the EU is going to start seizing Google assets both within EU and wherever else they can get project influence and eventually start issuing international arrest warrants for top Google executives(and arrest any Google executives that enter EU), simply put they are going to make life VERY difficult for Google.
Thats not the issue, sure users can switch search engines of course but companies competing with Google cannot choose what search engines the users go to and hence they are competing at a disadvantage against Google if Google promotes it's competing service in the search and since Google has a dominant market share such a behavior is prohibited business behavior withing the EU.
You are wrong, Google most definitely have a dominant market share in search which is what matters in EU antitrust legislation.
Therefore Google is forbidden from using that advantage in other markets such as map services, advertisement or whatever else they can think of.
By EU standards Google don't need to have a monopoly to be covered by antitrust legislation, they just has to have a dominant market position(the lowest market share so far that has been found to be dominant was 39.7%) and Google certainly has at least that in search, thus they are required to follow EU antitrust legislation.
Because within a nation the governments power(within the limitations set by the population in case of democracies) is absolute, they can write pretty much whatever laws they want and thus impose whatever fines they want. As a company you can either choose to adhere to the rules and regulations set by the local government or you can choose to not do business within their borders. The EU is a pretty sizable market so everyone wants to do business there
Also the point of these fines is that they have to hurt more than what the corporation gain from breaking the regulations or they are powerless. Also your complaint about it being just another way to block foreign business simply isn't true, so far the biggest fines handed out to a corporation by the Commission was to a European based company and even by frequency the Commission fines a lot more European based corporations than it does foreign ones.
The original reason for fines being on the global revenue was so that the Commission could fine European countries for misbehaving when doing business elsewhere.
Personally I think it's entirely fair because foreign corporations can always choose not to do business within the EU and thus avoid the regulations if they don't like them, of course that would hurt more than paying the fines...
There are 5.8 Million Jews in Israel alone and the Jewish world population is estimated at13.4 Million so your figures are just as fictive.
No not really, if you do that there will be so much noise contamination that no one will hear a thing(except for the guy trying to sneak up on you), you don't use active sonar until you have an actual target because it's detectable from a lot further away than it can detect things. If anyone was stupid enough to do that it's basically Christmas for an attacker, just send a whole bunch of sonar homing torpedoes(some very basic targeting selection can identify and ignore the buoys) in the general direction and watch things go boom.
Besides, an AIP submarine hugging the bottom is difficult to detect even with active sonar because things like bottom composition and variances in the salt content of the seawater in the path of the sonar beam can throw off the accuracy of the sonar beam so that even if you get a positive detection(which is not a given) you actually have very little idea where the target actually is.
I would rather argue that parking a carrier off somebody's coast and start lobbing missiles at them is basically asking for an all out war if they have the capability to retaliate, thus the question will not be whether we wanna shoot back because the answer will always be yes because it is already way past the point of no return when the missiles are already flying.
The US however have 2 questions they will be asking themselves, do we think they can sink a carrier and if yes what do we do when that happens.
Same point can be made for Pearl Harbor, US and UK put an embargo and blockade on oil destined for Imperial Japan and Japan couldn't produce enough from local sources so the Japanese got desperate and the surprise assault on Pearl Harbor was the result of that.
As long as they keep lobbying to increase copyright duration I personally find that to be a deal breaker, the original 25 years was ok for it's time, these days everything produced is expected to show a profit within the year so copyright should be limited to 3-5 years after creation/publication.
Copyright was never made for the benefit of the creators, it was made for the benefit of the general public by giving the creators a monopoly on distribution for a limited time.
Personally I find these constant extensions whenever the copyright on mickey mouse etc risks running out is against the spirit of that "for a limited time" and as such in my opinion they have voided any right to protection under the law, hence I will choose not to respect their distribution monopoly. If that would eventually cause them to go bankrupt from that then so much better, then maybe what comes after will be a system that actually works to the benefit of all sides involved.
What you're claiming is like claiming that someone has an expectation of privacy in public if they speak a different language compared to the national norm, it takes deliberate effort to intercept that discussion as well. You have to understand the language spoken.
Except that an EULA is not a legally binding agreement in a large part of the EU, and also many nations in the EU does not permit signing away some rights enshrined in law even with informed consent.
Yes MS has a definite monopoly on the PC and once MS starts to peddle ads directly in windows you can expect there to be antitrust lawsuits and huge EC fines unless they let everyone else in on the deal.
Personally I don't really have a big problem with the ads themselves as long as they are not intrusive or possible attack vectors but I definitely have zero tolerance for the whole tracking part.
For your A the the ad providers can expect there to be lawsuits right on their tails as soon as they take that path and eventually maybe even regulation.
For your B things will work until everybody copies IE which will happen as soon as everybody else see that they continue to respect IE's DNT and then things will go down the exact same route as A.
For your C when the ad providers that selectively only disregard IE DNT they will most likely be served with big lawsuits from MS and once that happens every other browser will promptly copy IE.
With your C do you seriously believe that the ad providers would restore status quo if IE dropped DNT as default? That (pretty much) never happens, once they stop respecting DNT they will do it across the board and will never go back because there is no incentive to do so, the only way to get back to status quo is with severe government regulation and even then only with much grumbling and only after the government has made an example out of someone.
The ad providers have better start thinking on the next scheme for foisting ads on everyone because the current one is bound to go the way of popup ads, probably sooner rather than later.
Making a functional gun-type U-235 nuclear weapon is a lot easier than making a functional implosion type Pu-239(or U-235) weapon.
Actually the first prosecutor decided to charge Assange but got overruled by their boss and later that boss was overruled by their boss("clear across Sweden").
So it's not so much about " a prosecutor clear across Sweden" deciding to pick the case up on a whim(or out of malice, spite etc.) and more about the case moving up the chain of command.