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European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance

• tripzilch 9y ago
  "Market dominance is, as such, not illegal under EU antitrust rules. However, dominant companies have a special responsibility not to abuse their powerful market position by restricting competition, either in the market where they are dominant or in separate markets." (emphasis added) I couldn't have said it better myself. That is how to do it.
• christmm 9y ago
  Who receives the fine, and is it disbursed in some way to the citizens of EU member states?
  • lucozade 9y ago
    According to this [0], which was the press release for Intel's fine, it gets taken off the EU central budget so the member states pay less net. The EU budget is ~145bn EUR I believe. [0] http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-09-235_en.htm?locale=en http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-09-235_en.htm?loca...
• rf15 9y ago
  I wish this would actually do something, though I am happy that another verdict has been passed. (cue "the market will regulate itself")
• clarry 9y ago
  Promoting your own product above competitors' is ok unless you're big. Ok, I get it. But I don't agree with it.
  • skrebbel 9y ago
    Actually, I'm not sure you get it. It's not about being big, it's about using a monopoly position in one field to gain entry to another. If you're big but not a monopolist, and you do the exact same thing, then way less of a problem. Hence Apple could bundle Safari with iOS but Microsoft couldn't bundle IE with Windows XP in the exact same way.
    • clarry 9y ago
      I avoided the word "monopoly" for a reason. The internet isn't a finite natural resource, Google doesn't own it, there are other players in the field, and nothing stops new players fron entering. You're also interpreting the word "big" perhaps too literally. In your example, Apple is not big in the sense I mean. Microsoft might be, but that doesn't mean I agree with the judgement against them. If people like your product so much that 95% of the market uses it, I don't see the abuse.
      • scribu 9y ago
        > The internet isn't a finite natural resource ... but human attention is.
      • zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
        > If people like your product so much that 95% of the market uses it, I don't see the abuse. Which is why the fine is not for 95% of the market using the product, but for abusing that position to unfairly disadvantage competitors.
        • jononor 9y ago
          Competitors in another market even, in this case shopping.
      • TeMPOraL 9y ago
        You're still missing what 'skrebbel wrote: > it's about using a monopoly position in one field to gain entry to another. It's not about Google dominating the search market. It's about Google leveraging their dominant position on the search market to promote their comparison shopping service, which is a different product for different market. Think of the competition laws as nerfing your ability to leverage domination of one market into immediate domination of other markets. Companies don't have natural rights, there are only the arbitrary rules of the market game, that are intended to promote general prosperity in the society.
  • glenndebacker 9y ago
    The problem is not being big but the effect you have on the market. And that effect is naturally a lot bigger if you are a defacto monopoly ergo why there are a different set of rules. It can't be all party if you are at that position. If you would not have that kind of control (and fines when they break those rules) it would be virtually impossible to beat these kind of entities or they can use their weight to strong-arm them-self in a lot of markets. See what happened in the past with Microsoft.
  • baq 9y ago
    runaway free market ends with standard oil. regulators need to keep it within bounds where competition is possible. it's doubly important in the internet where geography doesn't matter most of the time and winner takes all pretty much globally, because there's no other option really.
  • nothrabannosir 9y ago
    Controversial way to look at this, but surprisingly close to the truth: markets exist for the people. Companies have only one purpose: to serve the people. Their profits are merely incidental. Any type of regulation (or lack thereof) can be traced back to this rule. Freedoms exist only to let companies thrive insofar as that then lets them sell goods that benefit the people. Once that stops, the freedoms stop. I'm being slightly dry cut, but this is a good rule of thumb when looking at society. It's easy to forget about the bigger picture and think that companies have any type of inherent right to exist. They don't. They're here for us. Of course, theory vs practice, yada yada. but again: rule of thumb for regulations.
    • clarry 9y ago
      Integration of services and software could best serve the people. Promotion may do so too, especially when it comes to software that relies on network effects. If anything, punishing a big company for its potentially big effect on markets values 1) markets above people and 2) competitors' ability to participate on the market above the people. Banning integration or self-promotion could very well result in a worse product overall that serves people worse.
      • ko27 9y ago
        The 3 statements you made here are completely illogical and foreign to me. Can you provide sources for why you believe this kind of monopoly is beneficial to the people? For example this is my view and the view of most EU citizens: "punishing a big company for its potentially big effect on markets values 1) people above markets and 2) competitors' ability to participate on the market which is to the benefit of costumers (people)"
    • kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
      > Companies have only one purpose: to serve the people. That seems completely backwards. Governments have only one purpose—to serve the people. Companies have only one purpose—to serve its shareholders. Of course, purely pursuing this purpose can lead to perverse outcomes so we have regulation to keep it in check. > Companies [don't] have any type of inherent right to exist Huh? In so far as individuals have a right to engage in trade and commerce, and in so far as they have a right to engage in this in coordination with other individuals, companies do have a right to exist.
  • white-flame 9y ago
    If you're the central promoter that both you and your competitors use to promote products, that's a conflict of interest. You can self-promote whatever you want, as long as it's independent of others' promotions.
• mrleiter 9y ago
  If they do not comply within 90 days, they can be fined with 5% of the daily average revenue of Alphabet, Inc. For FY16, they had a revenue of approx. $90.27b, that leaves a fine of approx. $12.3m. *edit: forgot to divide by 365 (days). I apologise.
  • nickserv 9y ago
    Meaning that the fine is about half of what they make in a day. A slap on the wrist.
    • xbmcuser 9y ago
      Not profit revenue google this fine is 15-20% of google profits
    • uhnuhnuhn 9y ago
      The fine is 5% of daily Alphabet revenues, per day.
  • AlgorithmicTime 9y ago
    Just refuse to pay it, operate only from the UK and Switzerland in Europe. Can't fine someone who isn't in your jurisdiction
  • richardknop 9y ago
    They could be fined 5% of their daily revenue every day until they comply! Big difference. That would actually be a lot of money even for Google.
• forthefuture 9y ago
  Capitalism is like a competition that when you win you don't ever get to play again.
  • diggan 9y ago
    It's more like a game where others should have the chance to win at one point, just like you did.
    • rejschaap 9y ago
      Unless you manage to carve out a monopoly position, capitalism is pretty much a race to the bottom.
    • vixen99 9y ago
      Europeans could always use one of the other (European?) search engines if so they wished. http://searchengineland.com/alternatives-to-google-in-europe-50425 http://searchengineland.com/alternatives-to-google-in-europe...
      • Jare 9y ago
        That's not really an argument. "Google could always not operate in the EU if so they wished"
      • ionised 9y ago
        Or Google could follow the rules of the countries in which they operate.
        • ferongr 9y ago
          Please quote the rule that Google broke. In all 28 EU countries.
          • ionised 9y ago
            It's in the headline. Antitrust: Commission fines Google €2.42 billion for abusing dominance as search engine by giving illegal advantage to own comparison shopping service Antitrust rules. The EU decided they broke them. Whether you think they did or didn't is irrelevant.
• sguav 9y ago
  Google's flagship product is the Google search engine, which provides search results to consumers, who pay for the service with their data. anyone else finding the plainness of that last sentence to be staggering? ...
  • romanovcode 9y ago
    Well it's the truth, isn't it?
    • HerraBRE 9y ago
      I actually feel it's misleading and wrong at a very fundamental level; this was the only thing I disagreed with in the whole press release! Consumers "pay" for Google's services by giving ads attention so the ads have value and Google can sell them. All the data harvesting is a means to a end: to make the ads more appealing so you'll click. Google don't profit from the data directly; in fact all the data harvesting and processing is a significant cost factor. There are certainly other businesses that resell data and profit directly from data harvesting, but AFAIK, Google is not really one of them. It's a bit like saying that you pay a café by letting them observe you while you sit in their chairs. A basic misunderstanding of what's actually going on.
      • sweden 9y ago
        But in order to make the advertising business very profitable (this is, in order to give a reason for other businesses to use Google Ads to advertise themselves), Google needs to know all about you: who you are, where you are, what you like, what you don't like, what you like at certain times, what are your needs, etc, etc. The real value of advertising is in showing the right advertisement at the right time at the right person. Personal data is to advertisement what sugar is to candy. Your analogy with the café is very misguided and not related at all with the situation.
        • HerraBRE 9y ago
          It's still a means to an end. You don't pay with your data, you "pay" by interacting with ads. Consider that Google actually became super profitable well before all the detailed tracking started. You grossly underestimate the synergy of "people searching for products" and "displaying ads". Everything else is an optimization. You're describing Facebook... which is no where near as profitable as Google, in spite of much more invasive tracking. If you never click an ad and use an adblocker so you never even see them, your traffic and your data just cost Google money. They may be able to extract some small amount of value by observing your behaviour and using those insights to improve their products, but they don't make any money until someone pays for an ad. I agree the café analogy isn't perfect. I was just pointing out that outsiders who don't understand what's going on may fundamentally misunderstand the transaction. You can still provide value to the café by sitting in their chairs if you liven up the place and give them feedback on how to make the place nicer. But if customers never buy anything, the café goes broke. And people stop interacting with ads on Google, Google does too.
• ruiramos 9y ago
  Not sure I get the logic here. Will they be fined next for showing the Google Maps embed (and street view) when you search for places nearby? What's the difference?
  • nothrabannosir 9y ago
    I have to say that's a good question about maps. not sure why you're getting down voted.
  • karussell 9y ago
    The funny thing is that Google Maps is even worse than the shopping comparison IMO. But I think the shopping thing got traction as a few competitors bundled their forces and sued them. I like it and hope that Google will stop promoting their services without listing alternatives for lots of things that they promote on the search page (Google Maps, Android, Chrome, Youtube, ...). See 'other cases' in the document that could be next potential steps (ads, Android)
    • uhhhhhhh 9y ago
      My hope is that they provide an opt-in method to bundle in google services. I want google maps, youtube, shopping links, and largely view the search as a portal to the google platform. Removing this is removing a feature customers and the company wants, because other companies want to compete on individual products that may or may not be better while google is providing a platform with products you want integrated to simplify your life. I'll take simplicity, trust and reliability over a dozen disconnected services from different companies that I don't know what their motives are. I know googles motives, and as a user of their platform otherwise this service is exactly what I want. Ultimately my argument is if another company came along and did the exact same thing from the start (integrated platform with search etc...) no one would have an issue. the "Issue" is apparently google's existing search dominance. This is why i think it should be opt-in for users, and by default off. I don't think google is wrong for offering the service to users who want it, competitors have to provide a benefit or product that is so clearly better it offsets the benefits of a more integrated platform. That's the market/competition, not the EU's role.
• Kenji 9y ago
  Unjust enrichment of disgusting bureaucrats. In this case, google did nothing wrong other than display what they want on their own site, and for that they have to pay their hard earned money to an undemocratic authoritarian commission. No thanks.
  • calcifer 9y ago
    Yeah, no. The fine is not paid to any commission, it goes to the EU budget and is taken off from the amount member states (hence, citizens) have to pay for that year.
  • johngruber 9y ago
    Companies are free to do (or not) business wherever they want; they must follow the rules and regulations. We just have stronger laws and regulations about monopolies in Europe and apparently Google is ignoring them. Then it has to be fined to comply the rules as it makes sense. A similar thing is going on with the food. We have a more strict regulation, and there was some talks about deregulating it to do more business with USA; however this would in practical terms mean lowering the quality of our food. Of course everyone complained! The same is going on with the internet.
  • simion314 9y ago
    So Google should have the right if they want show the results they prefer and hide or push on 10th page results that may affect their profits? As an example say I have a very popular source code hosting or email service, so popular that is on top search results on all other search engine but in Google search is hidden intentionally, that seems fair to you and not an abuse of a search service to promote unrelated products? Would it be still be fair if Google would have deals like pay me X and you will be on front page, pay me Y and your competitor is not on front page, it is Google service so they can show anything they want.
  • zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
    Yeah, and if I am scamming you, I have just said what I want out of my own mouth, makes sense.
  • 9y ago
• andmarios 9y ago
  The press release is well written. It explains why Google is fined in an easy way to understand, covering most aspects; what is the problematic behavior, why it is considered as problematic, which data lead to this decision, etc, whilst not painting the company in a negative light. Opinions on the decision will sure differ among readers, but I think the decision is in place with the majority of EU citizens' consensus.
  • flexie 9y ago
    Absolutely. Next up, the Adsense and Android antitrust cases. How do I know? I googled it: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-google-antitrust-idUSKBN18I1EV http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-google-antitrust-idUSKB...
    • nvgjug 9y ago
      > How do I know? Umm, it says so in the article, the googling was unnecessary.
    • devoply 9y ago
      At this point they are also apparently abusing their capcha. You use it from Firefox, solve like 3 different captcha, my most recent experience with Cloudflare. Use it from Chrome, instant check after failing a login. And it's from the same IP that has done it over and over again. If you were the least bit intelligent you would not do this... unless you were trying to make the user experience of other browsers worse than yours by abusing a commonly offered service that you offer for free. Going forward this is worrying for other Google services as well and their cloud offering. Are they going to add a delay in responding to certain browsers, I dunno. Maybe there is a reasonable explanation, I dunno
      • charlesdm 9y ago
        I guess they assume, if you're actually loading from Chrome, you're probably not a bot? They're probably checking for more than just a simple user agent? That said, as far as I know (I'll keep an eye on it), I haven't always received an instant check in Chrome when dealing with a captcha.
• pavlakoos 9y ago
  Does it hurt them at all?
  • rsp1984 9y ago
    Not the money part of it. Not sure about legal/strategic implications down the road.
    • pavlakoos 9y ago
      Legal? Legal implications usually can lead to a big fine, but that already happened, so I'm not sure if there's room for follow-up.
    • Atropos 9y ago
      They have 90 days to "stop the abusive practices", basically meaning find a way to redesign their website - this is what they really care about.
  • claudius 9y ago
    They had a net income of 23 Billion Dollars in 2016, so the one-time fine alone is approx. 10% of their net income last year. The daily fine of 5% of daily worldwide revenue would amount to approx. 20% of their daily worldwide net income (using the 90 Billion from Wikipedia as worldwide revenue and 23 Billion as net income). Since the EU is likely more than just 10%/20% of their income, they still make some money here, but I doubt that it was worth it for Froogle…
• currysausage 9y ago
  I tend to agree with the underlying judgment, yet the record-breaking fine seems disproportionate to the debatable degree of wrongdoing, compared to the Intel case, where the (obviously reprehensible) extortion of distributors etc. only led to a fine of about €1.06B.
  • grenoire 9y ago
    The fines aren't made up arbitrary numbers, and the article is clear on that too. "In accordance with the Commission's 2006 Guidelines on fines (see press release and MEMO), the fine has been calculated on the basis of the value of Google's revenue from its comparison shopping service in the 13 EEA countries concerned."
  • ginko 9y ago
    I'd say the problem isn't so much that Google's fine is too high, but that Intel's fine was too low.
    • eeZah7Ux 9y ago
      They are both really low.
      • jazoom 9y ago
        Apparently both are less than a third of the maximum penalty.
  • ionised 9y ago
    I'm convinced the fine should be calculated according to the ability to pay.
  • matt4077 9y ago
    What matters more than the absolute sum is the amount of "pain" it causes. It's therefore tied to size more than just "evilness".
• jlebrech 9y ago
  what's stopping google from shutting up shop in the EU. would they have to block EU access? how much revenue do they make from EU clients?
  • munchor 9y ago
    What about the thousands of people they hire across their multiple offices in the EU?
  • flexie 9y ago
    Business is what is stopping Google from not servicing Europe. Google makes huge part of its profit on search in Europe and pays almost no tax in Europe. If Google stopped servicing Europe, one or more European competitors would emerge in days or weeks and Google's dominance would be threatened worldwide within months. It would be a completely suicidal move.
    • cJ0th 9y ago
      Yeah, it seems "search" isn't as untouchable as it used to be. Qwant, for instance, may not be a 100% there but it is quite good. https://www.qwant.com/ https://www.qwant.com/
      • zepto 9y ago
        What are you taking about? Any Google Search competitor needs to be seriously better than google in order to stand a chance, ‘not 100% there’ is equivalent to not there at all. Moreover Qwant is just bing search results repackaged.
        • cJ0th 9y ago
          > Moreover Qwant is just bing search results repackaged. Not in France and Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwant#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwant#Criticism
  • Inconel 9y ago
• gressquel 9y ago
  I wish they would add an additional 1 billion fine for AMP.
  • bencollier49 9y ago
    Perhaps that's up next.
  • ihsw2 9y ago
    AMP is the best thing to happen to Android users, I vastly prefer sites that serve AMP content to ones that don't.
    • zegerjan 9y ago
      Why only to android? I thought it was an device agnostic technology?
  • kuschku 9y ago
    AMP and Android are in a separste case that's also being worked on right now, fines over 4 bln are expected there.
    • huckyaus 9y ago
      Do you have a source for the claim that AMP is part of the Android case, or indeed any case?
      • kuschku 9y ago
        Only a mail from the EC that this is already being investigated after I filed a claim against the AMP cache granting a search ranking benefit.
  • nkkollaw 9y ago
    From what I read, AMP is a subset of HTML to make pages load faster and deliver ads more efficiently (which might appeal to content creators). I assume that Google is attempting to make devs start using a proprietary technology instead of the well-established HTML standard, or: - somehow lock everyone in with the format - force people to switch to Chrome since it would run those pages better - force other browsers to implement the technology (until they sneak in a patented technology once AMP is popular?) Where can I read a good article about why AMP is bad?
• vegancap 9y ago
  The EU are verging on gangsterism, extorting businesses for increasingly specious violations and terms. Of course Google favour their affiliates on THEIR web services, their property.
  • s_kilk 9y ago
    I find the manic defense of corporate interests over the interests of the public more sickening.
    • mehwoot 9y ago
      Welcome to America
      • vegancap 9y ago
        America? I thought this was Google vs the EU?
        • ionised 9y ago
          Americans seem to think this is the US versus the EU.
          • ocdtrekkie 9y ago
            As an American who wishes his government protected him as well as the EU is protecting their citizens, I kinda resent being grouped in here. Google fans would like to make this about US vs. the EU, because it misdirects away from Google's illegal actions. But multiple US companies asked for and supported this investigation against Google. And I wish our government laid down the same charges against them here.
            • ionised 9y ago
              My understanding is that the same anti-trust protections exist in the US, perhaps even stronger ones, but were not applied. Is this just a case of lobbying corruption?
• wyager 9y ago
  What would Google have to do to ignore this fine? If they cut any physical presence in the EU, would the EC have any way to enforce this fine? Put another way, if the EU tried to take money from some random e.g. American or Japanese company without a physical presence in the EU, what channels could the EU use to twist their arm across national boundaries? Somewhat related, there could be good money in providing an explicitly non-hostile legal environment for companies, where they won't get in trouble for e.g. promoting their own services or offering services for free [1]. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/feb/03/google-fined-france-maps-free https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/feb/03/google-fi...
  • kuschku 9y ago
    Google as assets in the EU, and Google has liabilities with EU banks. The EU could simply seize Google's servers and intellectual property, and sell it to fund this. Additionally, if you'd create a jurisdiction just to avoid the law, you can expect that no country will protect your copyright. You'd have the EU courts support every person stealing your IP. You really don't want to pick a fight with a legal system that your entire business depends on.
  • pjc50 9y ago
    Google could remove any presence they had in the EU, at huge expense (closing Google Dublin, abandoning all EU revenue); but that would also remove their ability to use Ireland and the Netherlands as tax havens. They'd have to submit to the US tax system instead.
    • wav-part 9y ago
      Being exposed to EC insanity makes Ireland, Netherland makes less appealing now. However there are many more to choose from eg Singapore. > abandoning all EU revenue How ? A corp does not have to exist in EU to recieve payments from EU. > They'd have to submit to the US tax system instead. For such tax structring to work, Google just need one non-US IP holding jurisdiction. So they can cut off physical/legal tie from EU, and they should.
  • tobylane 9y ago
• interfixus 9y ago
  Please enlighten me: What kind of monopoly would that be? Much as I detest an awful lot of Google, I have never once been - and know of noone else who has ever been - forced to use their search against my will. In fact, I get along fine without it, as well as without their analytics and their browser and their cloud stuff, excepting of course that I am often forced to correspond with gmail addresses.
  • Trundle 9y ago
    Did you mean to reply to someone? The word monopoly doesn't appear in the press release.
  • amelius 9y ago
    It's explained here, [1]. Monopoly is not the right term. See market dominance instead. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_competition_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_competition_law
  • calcifer 9y ago
    Google holding a dominant position or a monopoly on search is not by itself illegal. However, using that position to gain entry in a different market (shopping, in this case) is considered anti-competitive and hence illegal.
    • interfixus 9y ago
      No, I realise that. My question is how are they supposed to hold a monoply or dominance, when there is nothing but preference or lazyness stopping anyone from switching to a competing service?
      • calcifer 9y ago
        > nothing but preference or lazyness Those two (but especially preference) are extremely strong motivators for humans to choose one product over the other. But even if it wasn't, the law is there the protect the citizens and their livelihoods, not one company's supposed right to hold a monopoly.
• Tomis02 9y ago
  Google giving an advantage to its shopping service is peanuts. The way Chrome was promoted (not only through search, but other Google services as well) is the real abuse.
  • jcranberry 9y ago
    If that's the case then they way Microsoft promoted IE before Chrome was the work of Satan himself.
    • jazoom 9y ago
      And Microsoft was punished for it.
    • camus2 9y ago
      Microsoft got hit with a huge fine because of IE. The reason Safari got off the hook eludes me, maybe because Apple doesn't have a monopoly on computer OS.
      • M2Ys4U 9y ago
        That's exactly the reason. Microsoft were dominant, Apple wasn't.
  • jazoom 9y ago
    That's true. It's so annoying when I duck into Firefox for a minute while doing web development and Google yells at me to get me to install Chrome, even though I already use Chrome 99% of the time.
• theBobBob 9y ago
  The thing is, personally I prefer getting integrated results from Google's other search services when I do a Google search. I like getting Google Maps results when I search for a location, I like getting Google Flights results etc. When I do a Google search I am not just using it as a simple website search. I want it to use it to search the whole Google suite of services. If they are forced to stop doing this it will make my search experience worse for me. Random, maybe silly idea. Maybe they could start providing two search streams. One would just be a simpler website search while the other would be a more involved google services search as well as a general website search. This way search users could explicitly say that they want to see direct integrated results from the whole Google ecosystem.
  • goodplay 9y ago
    Anecdotal experience: I switched browsers on android because android's default browser kept opening map links in google map. Firefox mobile didn't seem to suffer from that issue. While google's tight integration lead to a positive experience for you, it lead to a very poor experience for myself or others who want to use something not google. I'm not asking for the EUC to fine google, I'm asking for choice.
    • theBobBob 9y ago
      Not 100% but I thought that android asks you the first time you click on a maps/wiki etc link would you rather use browser or app and whether you want to do it once or always. I agree with you that choice is good. That is kinda why I proposed my very simplistic solution of Google offering two ways of searching. One stream which tightly integrates with the Google Ecosystem which would be a plus for many people (like myself) and another where they just give you the results without any integration.
      • dmix 9y ago
        This is true, Google always asks you which app to open specialized links in. The OP may have been using the Google search results which directly rendered a Google Maps instead of a address link. Not 100% sure either.
• purpleidea 9y ago
  Why so low? (Not sarcasm)
  • pdw 9y ago
    This case was only about Froogle/Google Product Search/Google Shopping. Separate cases about Android and AdSense are still ongoing.
• johngruber 9y ago
  This is a really interesting topic; you might not care about a random small business, but you probably care about the future of Wikipedia. There were complains as Google snippets were basically cutting Wikimedia funds by showing the info but not the "fund us" banner when needed. If Search integrated it further without providing any other funding, they'd basically kill Wikipedia in the middle-long term, which would be a really awful thing. I can see the same happening with many other products and companies and EU point of view here. I can also see Google's points for making a smoother user experience and getting more money by keeping the users longer in Google web stack. It's not a black and white issue at all, instead a balance must be achieved; USA is more pro-enterprise while EU is more pro-citizen/small company. You might remember the first notorious case that happened: Internet Explorer. At the top of IE usage, EU started mandating Microsoft to give a choice for its users to use the browser that they prefer. This implied in practical terms that all new systems would ask the user on loading the computer the first time what browser they preferred, with the choices including Opera and Firefox.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• mythz 9y ago
  This is a ridiculous figure, how can they come up with a figure more than 2x times the amount of the previous record (for Intel's egregious behavior) for deciding what content goes on their own platform, which wasn't previously known to be illegal? What do they want to force Google to do now, prohibit being able to advertise on their own platform? give their competitors priority placement for free? How many rival comparison services do they need to show now? There could be hundreds popping up to take advantage of the forced exposure with scam and ad-ridden pages. Does Google have to show them all? Who decides? Will this ruling extend to all other relevant content Google shows around Search results? Guess we'll have to see, but this ruling could force Google to provide a degraded Customer experience which I guess is one way to make their Services less appealing and allow competition to catch up.
  • pulse7 9y ago
    ..."for deciding what content goes on their own platform" - but is used inside EU market under EU laws...
  • IanCal 9y ago
    > This is a ridiculous figure, how can they come up with a figure more than 2x times the amount of the previous record (for Intel's egregious behavior) for deciding what content goes on their own platform, which wasn't previously known to be illegal By following the rules & regulations set out, which Google will have been fully aware of. This is explained in the link and should not have required calling it "ridiculous". I also disagree it wasn't previously known to be illegal unless you can show something has been applied retroactively (so a law created in 2008 or later). > The Commission's fine of €2 424 495 000 takes account of the duration and gravity of the infringement. In accordance with the Commission's 2006 Guidelines on fines (see press release and MEMO), the fine has been calculated on the basis of the value of Google's revenue from its comparison shopping service in the 13 EEA countries concerned. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-06-857_en.htm?locale=en http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-06-857_en.htm?locale... http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-06-256_en.htm?locale=en http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-06-256_en.htm?loca... http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/legislation/fines.html http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/legislation/fines.... > What do they want to force Google to do now > The Commission Decision requires Google to stop its illegal conduct within 90 days of the Decision and refrain from any measure that has the same or an equivalent object or effect. In particular, the Decision orders Google to comply with the simple principle of giving equal treatment to rival comparison shopping services and its own service: > Google has to apply the same processes and methods to position and display rival comparison shopping services in Google's search results pages as it gives to its own comparison shopping service. Doesn't mean they have to show terrible shopping pages, they just have to compete with them on an even footing rather than pushing every other comparison site back to almost nowhere in the results.
• patrickaljord 9y ago
  I wonder if that's payback for the US gov fining VW so hard: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/04/21/volkswagen-diesel-scandal-hearing/100739290/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/04/21/volkswa... It's almost the same amount, US$2.8B. It's like the EU telling the US "F with our corporations and we'll F with yours".
  • mtmail 9y ago
    That's unrelated. The EU is going after Volkswagen as well. http://fortune.com/2016/09/05/eu-volkswagen-emissions-tests/ http://fortune.com/2016/09/05/eu-volkswagen-emissions-tests/
  • pulse7 9y ago
    I wonder how much GM will pay for emissions cheating in US: http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/25/news/companies/gm-emissions-cheating/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/25/news/companies/gm-emissions-...
  • kbart 9y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but Google antitrust investigation had started earlier than VW scandal, so maybe that's vice versa.
  • distances 9y ago
    That's a very cynical view. As an European citizen I expect my representatives not to engage in such childish schemes even if it's about considerable sums. I think the provided explanation is clear and the punishment reasonable.
    • dustinmoris 9y ago
      Are you sure? This is the company who initiated the lawsuit: http://www.foundem.co.uk/ http://www.foundem.co.uk/ By looking at the website do you think they were disadvantaged in Google search because of Google's monopoly or perhaps for MANY other reasons? I mean it doesn't even render on mobile...
• dustinmoris 9y ago
  Someone said once something which really describes this well: The EU hasn't contributed ANYTHING to the internet, but they are the ones who want to regulate it the most. :(
  • kuisch 9y ago
    why should the ability to regulate be contingent on the level of contribution of the regulating authority?
  • raverbashing 9y ago
    Enjoy your non-neutral internet in the US and your extortionate roaming fees when you walk closer to Canada And if by the EU you mean its countries, you're so wrong it's not even funny, but the US bubble is strong
    • dustinmoris 9y ago
      I don't need to be a US citizen to agree with this statement. I am an EU citizen living in the EU and to be honest I think this fine is BS. The company who initiated this lawsuit is http://www.foundem.co.uk/ http://www.foundem.co.uk/. This website looks like absolute shit, it doesn't even render properly on mobile, but hey, if they fail they just blame Google search for their mistakes and the EU backs it without second thoughts after the US has fined VW recently for actual fraud.
      • tobylane 9y ago
        Without second thought? Can you read the easy to understand explanation given for the fine and judge again?
    • strictnein 9y ago
      > Enjoy your non-neutral internet in the US This isn't really a thing you realize, right? But what is a thing is many European countries wanting to gut encryption. Enjoy your non-secure communications. > "your extortionate roaming fees when you walk closer to Canada" What does that even mean? Many carrier plans now include roaming throughout Canada and Mexico by default. That covers over twice the land mass of Europe.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• jordonwii 9y ago
  Google posted a response blog post: https://www.blog.google/topics/google-europe/european-commission-decision-shopping-google-story/ https://www.blog.google/topics/google-europe/european-commis... It's mostly just fluff, but they do make a good point about the role of Amazon and eBay in product searches. I remember one of the early criticisms of the EU in this case being that they defined the "market" to exclude Amazon and eBay. Anyone know what the EUs reasoning for that is?
  • amelius 9y ago
    From Google's piece: > When you shop online, you want to find the products you’re looking for quickly and easily. And advertisers want to promote those same products. That's why Google shows shopping ads, connecting our users with thousands of advertisers, large and small, in ways that are useful for both. The problem is that when you are shopping for something, you don't want advertisers to be influencing what you see in search results. You generally want the best match to your search, not the product with the biggest advertisement budget behind it. By upranking others, Google is benefiting themselves, and doing the consumer a disservice. This is what they should be fined for. But they have a point about Amazon and others doing basically similar things.
    • jazoom 9y ago
      Good point. Those are ads they are displaying.
    • cwills 9y ago
      > The problem is that when you are shopping for something, you don't want advertisers to be influencing what you see in search results. You generally want the best match to your search, not the product with the biggest advertisement budget behind it. So they should remove advertising from google search results altogether? Like saying TV networks shouldn't put ads/product-placements in their shows because their viewers are only interested in the shows/content.
      • amelius 9y ago
• soufron 9y ago
  My point of view? Good or bad, there is more to come: https://medium.com/@soufron/eu-commission-fines-google-2-42-billion-and-there-might-be-more-to-come-664999fd6277 https://medium.com/@soufron/eu-commission-fines-google-2-42-...
• thg 9y ago
  I wonder how many competitors and established providers were driven out of the market because of Google's practice. This fine isn't nearly enough, as Google will have earned much more than that and stands to earn a lot more in the future, simply because they used their overwhelming market share to kill off competitors. They'll just do it again and again because in the long term it profits them way more than playing fair.
• codeproject 9y ago
  I beg everyone answer my question. The anti-trust laws are originated from USA. The anti-monopolies rules are much harsher in US than those of Europe. Why did not federal government pick this up? Since a lot of the companies that are disadvantaged by this Google practice are Us companies. Also I have to agree that this ruling is tough but fair. And the writing is very concise by easy to understand. it is good writing no matter you like the ruling or not.
  • ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    It's really simple: Corruption. The former FTC Commissioner, Joshua Wright, was actually paid to fabricate academic studies claiming Google wasn't a monopoly, which Google then used as 'independent' expert testimony. Google's funded about half of Congress in some way or another. Dozens of Googlers held high-ranking positions in the Obama Administration's White House. (Including many relating to tech, such as the head of the Patent and Trademark Office, the White House's CTO, etc.) Google has invested significant money, resources, and manpower in the United States government, and at least, during the Obama administration, was perceived as an ally to the general agenda. We have yet to see how much changes under Trump, the rumor is Joshua Wright is already back involved with the FTC, but the Trump administration has lagged on actually getting all these agencies re-staffed, and who knows what'll actually happen: https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/google-gets-a-seat-on-the-trump-transition-team/ https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/google-gets-a-seat-on-th...
  • tannhaeuser 9y ago
    The US antitrust regulation that led Google's acquisition of DoubleClick and Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp happen? That one?
  • tyingq 9y ago
    The FTC did investigate Google for this exact same thing, and the investigators recommended action be taken. http://graphics.wsj.com/google-ftc-report/ http://graphics.wsj.com/google-ftc-report/ "Staff concludes that Google's conduct has resulted - and will result - in real harm to consumers and to innovation in the online search and advertising markets. Google has strengthened its monopolies over search and search advertising through anticompetitive means..." It went nowhere though: "The staff recommended bringing a lawsuit challenging certain Google practices. The Commission ultimately voted, 5-0, not to bring charges against Google."
• captainmuon 9y ago
  A maybe bigger damage is that I don't trust Google's search results for product recommendations anymore. It used to be (when product search was still new), that you could search for something, "barbecue grill", "best graphics card", and the first few results gave you a good overview of the market. Now, it is almost worthless, as the results are determined by commercial interests, not the popularity of the products. And this is not even considering the point of this fine, the highlighted "product search" results, I'm just talking about the "organic" results. Oddly, I've found Amazon's rankings for many product categories (not for all) to be very good.
• MichaelBurge 9y ago
  I assume Google only needs to show pages complying with this order for requests originating from the EU, so the rest of us shouldn't see any difference from the European Protectorates' order.
  • jazoom 9y ago
    Except maybe an international precedent will be scary enough for Google not to risk it.
• MarkMc 9y ago
  The thing is, Google is not just a search engine - it's also a command line interpreter. When I type "translate goodnight to french" or "coca cola stock price" I don't want a list of web pages - I want a single, authorative answer.
  • tripzilch 9y ago
    Well IMO, with authority comes even more responsibility than market dominance.
• oyvey 9y ago
  Visting google is 100% voloutary and there are alternatives. The EU should not interfere, its unnecessary and I think its an abuse of power from their side.
  • ko27 9y ago
    Well that's just your opinion, which is not shared by most people. Definitely not by EU citizens, so it can not be an "abuse of power". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly#Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly#Law
  • yladiz 9y ago
    > Using Internet Explorer is 100% voloutary and there are alternatives. The US government should not interfere, its unnecessary and I think its an abuse of power from their side.
    • justin66 9y ago
      Hopefully you realize that a lot of people (in the US and elsewhere) actually felt that way, and that simply posting this does not constitute a very thoughtful rebuttal. The application of antitrust law (in the US and elsewhere) tends to be rather controversial. Which is why it's interesting...
      • yladiz 9y ago
        I know, my implicit argument is that this specific argument isn't really valid because these circumstances have happened before and I don't believe the decision against Microsoft is controversial in 2017. I do believe that something like Google, while obviously having alternatives, is often the place people search, so it is in many ways a monopoly and should be heavily scrutinized to ensure it's not using its position for its own gain at the expense of its competitors. I don't know anyone who really uses Bing, and I only use DuckDuckGo because I don't prefer to be in the Google ecosystem, but I am not most people.
        • justin66 9y ago
• easytiger 9y ago
  You can be quite certain if google recognised their revenue in in France, not Ireland, this would not have happened. Yet another shakedown, no matter what you think of the merits of the case
• Ensorceled 9y ago
  The stark dichotomy between the main two views expressed in the commentary is almost breathtaking. I shouldn't be surprised that so many people support Google using their near monopoly on search to crush their subsidiary's (sibling's ?) competitors in other spheres; after all, I saw people support IBM and Microsoft when they were up to similar shenanigans.
• msurekci 9y ago
  Does anyone know where the €2.42B will be used? Will it be used to compensate the rival companies? Will it be used to compensate European consumers? (And most importantly, it denied European consumers a genuine choice of services and the full benefits of innovation)
  • jazoom 9y ago
    Probably not compensation since at the end of the statement it's mentioned that affected entities can now due Google for damages.
  • geodel 9y ago
    Most likely it will be for upkeep of EU bureaucracy.
  • TimonKnigge 9y ago
    > Fines are paid into the Community budget and therefore help to finance the European Union and reduce the tax burden on individuals. https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/879647936686305281 https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/879647936686305281
  • justin66 9y ago
    Another poster linked to a FAQ about the Intel decision, which indicated the money in that case went to the EU central fund. Limousine tires, gold leaf on a few rooftops, some agricultural subsidies...
• argo_ 9y ago
  "As a result, Google's comparison shopping service is much more visible to consumers in Google's search results." Well, that makes sense.
• redm 9y ago
  This was rumored to be coming for some time. The most interesting part to me: "Vestager said the EU might also need to take a closer look at Google’s behavior concerning maps, travel and restaurant reviews."
  • speeq 9y ago
    So we'll just have a worse search experience here. Thanks EU..
• dingo_bat 9y ago
  This is like forcing itunes to show movie results from prime video.
  • kbart 9y ago
    No. The key difference is that iTunes owns the rights to the contest it promotes via some kind of author-distributor agreement, so all the contest is 'theirs'. Google search, on the other hand, crawls the whole web, but put results by Google Shopping on top and punishes others, that have nothing to do with Google nor gave them an explicit permission to use their content. This creates an illusion that Google Shopping products are somehow better.
• throwaway2016a 9y ago
  I might be in a minority here and I'll probably get down voted but this result scares me... and I used to be CTO one of those competing price comparison sites that show up lower in the results so if anyone should agree it should be me. While it made me angry when Google put their results above ours, I never questioned that they had a right to do that. It is their website. They are not a utility. At what point does a company cross the line and become one that the EU feels can no longer promote their own product? After all, the actual products here are the products being sold not the comparison sites. If I search for baseball bat the product is the bat not the competing search results. What's next? Having to give equal ranking to Yahoo! search results in their search page? It sounds extreme but I would have also thought this was extreme until 2 minutes ago. Or perhaps more accurate... having to completely do away with One Box entirely. After all, when I search for a movie it displays the actor information and movie times before it displays the link to the theater website or IMDB.
  • surak 9y ago
    You are actually wrong, they have been classed as an essential platform, see the discussion in regards to the NIS directive and its application to Google.
  • frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    Maybe the answer is that Google should be a utility. Search is obviously a natural monopoly.
    • jpttsn 9y ago
      Can you deign to explain why you think so, or is it so obvious that I should just be ashamed for not seeing it?
      • frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
        Perhaps obvious was not a good choice. Anyways: I would say Google is as close to a natural monopoly as the Bell System was in 1956. If you came to me and said “Hey, I want to start a company to compete with Google in search,” I would say you’re out of your mind and don’t waste your energy or your time or your money, there’s just no way. Classic economics would say that if there’s a business in which there are 35 percent net margins, that would attract a huge amount of new capital to capture some of that, and none of that has happened. That tells you there’s something wrong. From: https://promarket.org/google-close-natural-monopoly-bell-system-1956/ https://promarket.org/google-close-natural-monopoly-bell-sys... Water companies are a utility because there's a high cost to laying the pipes and the more pipes you lay, the more people you service, the more pipes you can afford to lay. It's near impossible for an upstart water company to come in and displace the incumbent. Search companies should be a utility because there's a high cost to gathering the data needed to drive good results and the more data you gather, the better results you give, the more data you gather. It's near impossible for an upstart search company to come in and displace the incumbent.
• szczepano 9y ago
  Funny fact below the article is that 2 contacts - that are in fact British citizens. Ricardo CARDOSO (+32 2 298 01 00) https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricardocardosodeandrade/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricardocardosodeandrade/ Yizhou REN (+32 2 299 48 89) https://www.linkedin.com/in/yizhou-ren-a2950616/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/yizhou-ren-a2950616/ Both graduated from same school and both have financial sector background. Both were working in big UK corporations before their career in EU commission.
  • yokisan 9y ago
    They may have studied in the LSE but Yizhou Ren is from Germany, apparently.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• grondilu 9y ago
  Maybe it's time Google enters politics, gains control of the US army somehow, and then threatens to invade Europe if they ever bother them again.
  • matt4077 9y ago
    Maybe Google is run by people far above idiotic nationalistic revenge fantasies such as this.
    • grondilu 9y ago
      Two billion dollars is a lot of money. Maybe enough to consider all possible means to avoid paying them.
  • MrZongle2 9y ago
    "Maybe it's time Google enters politics..." I think we're long past that point: https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close-relationship-with-the-obama-white-house-in-two-charts/ https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close...
    • grondilu 9y ago
      Great. Just two more steps then :)
• throwaway201 9y ago
  This is exactly same as penalizing someone for opposing net neutrality
• trevos 9y ago
  Google's dominance is so complete that for years even their top browser competitor, Firefox, came preset to use an omnibox with Google as the default search engine, meaning that everything one typed into the browser was sent to Google, even if not actually a Google search. This integration with Google is pervasive in Firefox; there are dozens of settings built into the browser that send information to various Google services. Yes, it's possible to change all of them, but probably less than 0.001% of users will do that. This is why it's not possible to take Firefox's claim that they are pro-privacy seriously.
  • wstrange 9y ago
    Firefox defaulted to Google search because they got paid a ton of money to do so.
  • Karunamon 9y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but Firefox doesn't have a proper omnibox. It has an explicitly split search and URL field.
• duke360 9y ago
  while i disagree with EU and i think that goole has full right of sort things inthe way it wants, i also recognize that the "don't be evil" motto are just bullshits google has the bad habit to sell itself as the saviour, while it is just making its own interests like anyone else... do not hide google...
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• johnking 9y ago
  As someone who is cautious about the prospect of Amazon and other large retailers completely dominating the e-commerce space, this ruling worries me a bit. As things stand, the Google Shopping results allow smaller, independent e-commerce stores to reach the top of Google's search results. Take this functionality away, and we risk the top search results being a combination of Amazon + other large retailers for the majority of e-commerce related searches.
• dpatru 9y ago
  This is despicable. Google is a private company who cannot force anyone to use its services. It is successful because consumers and advertisers have chosen to use its services because it makes their lives better. Google's investors risked and are risking their own money to build the company in hopes of earning a return by providing better services than other companies. Now come government bureaucrats, moral pygmies who live off of taxes coerced from the citizenry, who have none of their own money at risk, who have no expertise, presuming to tell Google that they are harming the consumers who are choosing to use its services. These are despicable little parasites who are doing their best to extract money from companies who are driving civilization forward. See also https://mises.org/library/abolish-antitrust-laws https://mises.org/library/abolish-antitrust-laws for a more detailed explanation of why antitrust is bad.
  • ionised 9y ago
    I feel like you have totally missed the point.
• oever 9y ago
  To avoid market domination, companies should pay a percentage X of their profit as taxes. X is the average market share of the company in the last five years.
• Jerry2 9y ago
  Why is this story being flagged so much? It's the biggest news of the day!
• rizenfrmtheash 9y ago
  I kind of want google to shut off all services for a week in EU countries. No search, images, maps, gmail, or android services. I wonder how quickly the eu will sober up.
  • SmooL 9y ago
    Isn't that the exact type of situation we want to avoid though? A single corporation shouldn't be able to extort the whole EU...
  • ino 9y ago
    Bing and ddg would fill 90% of that void in two days.
  • kazen44 9y ago
    also, i doubt google would want to do that considering the EU as a economic block is the largest economy in the world with nearly 510 million people. It is larger then the US by a fair margin.
• throwawaymanbot 9y ago
  If they like google, they will love Amazon in the next few years!
• throwawaymanbot 9y ago
  What is annoying about this all, is that the EU picks on tech companies a lot. They seem to do absolutely NOTHING about the financial houses, that got away with an awful lot during the greatest financial crisis the world has ever seen, as an example. It would be much better for consumers if the EU applied their fines to more "dangerous to society" type outfits, that can actually do and have done immense damage to economies not just in the EU, but the US and rest of the world. The EU should apply consumer concern to the banking/finance sector in equal measure as they do with Tech firms. After all, Google cannot crash a society, But the Banking/financial sector can and has done.
  • kazen44 9y ago
    the problem with fining financial structures is that the eurozone at the moment has no common fiscal policy and no framework to do these kind of financial crimes efficiently. Although there is far more support to integrate more fiscal policy across the eurozone (as expressed by both macron, merkel and some minor other EU nations), the legislation simply isn't their yet.
    • throwawaymanbot 9y ago
      You are right, But I imagine thats by lobbyist design. If there was the will to investigate, it would happen easily. Its odd how Tech which changes my browser search gets heavy regulation EU wide, but not fiscal items, where a currency is shared EU wide.
• AndrewKemendo 9y ago
  The larger existential question that this should raise for most people is this: Do you have more power to improve your life over the long term in your role as an individual consumer or an individual voter? If you take the stance that the government is looking out for your interests better than Google is, then by default you must be arguing one of two things: 1. Your act of voting (or political action) is positively correlated to your desires. or 2. The (collective) Government knows what's better for you than Google could and is implementing that to your benefit. I find either argument unsubstantiated.
  • Analemma_ 9y ago
    I don't see any evidence that my purchasing actions are positivity correlated to my desires either.
    • AndrewKemendo 9y ago
      Just so I interpret this correctly, are you saying that you purchase things you don't want?
      • Analemma_ 9y ago
        What I mean is I don't see my buying habits having any larger of an impact on the behavior of corporations than my voting habits do on the behavior of the government. The libertarian conviction that businesses will change their behavior to attract my dollars never seemed to have any empirical footing to me.
        • AndrewKemendo 9y ago
          I think the empirical footing is simply seeing how companies change their businesses to adjust to consumer demands. All of the major players have shown time and time again that they adjust their products based on user behavior. The entire Lean method and deploy-measure-iterate-deploy cycle, is predicated on a feedback loop between users and products.
• lucozade 9y ago
  This is going to sound a bit conspiracy theory but here goes... I was looking at the highlights of the EU competition commission[0]. Is it just me or is there a theme (with a few exceptions) that runs something like: + Large US company XXX gets anti-trust fine. + EU company gets state aid approved. + rinse and repeat Maybe it's just a coincidence but I wonder what the P&L for the Competition Commission looks like given that fines go to the EU not to the aggrieved parties. As an EU citizen, it's nice that the Commission is working hard to reduce my tax bill but I do wonder if this is entirely neutral. [0] http://ec.europa.eu/competition/news_en.html http://ec.europa.eu/competition/news_en.html
  • troisx 9y ago
    Considering how much tax dodging the US companies engage in, I'm not sure that would be unfair if it was true.
    • omnimus 9y ago
      Exactly. Many opinions here are the "market will solve everything" american way. But what many people fail to mention is how american corps avoid taxes. In my country fb and google are main online services with milions customers yet they pay no taxes. Its amazing what you can do when you are 2big2fail
      • lossolo 9y ago
        > "market will solve everything" american way This got us 2008 financial crisis, deregulations were the main reason. You need to add greed to every equation you make and then you get different results.
  • gpderetta 9y ago
    The google fine is the new record, but 9/10ths of the previous largest antitrust fines were given to EU companies.
• ABCLAW 9y ago
  Seems like a lot of non-lawyers are learning how competition law works and very upset that it also applies to tech. This thread, unfortunately, contains a very low-level discussion regarding what's going on because it is premised upon whether or not competition law has merit in the first place, rather than whether or not it should apply in this specific instance. This is understandable, because most people here don't actually understand the competition framework or how its various moving parts work, either in principle or in practice. Google has enough lawyers to know that its internal policy was at risk of triggering competition oversight. If it didn't, it has a horrendously inept legal and regulatory risk compliance structure in place. As a point, in competition cases, companies will generally try to bite off more than they know the regulators will allow, then use that action to shift the goalposts to negotiate better boundaries for their practices or acquisitions than they would have otherwise obtained.[1] This is what Google has done. Only most people don't see it because their main competitive advantage hasn't' been in easily analysed assets like high-margin factories or efficient logistics operations. Our language of business is not well structured for discussing the competitive advantage Google has acquired by repeatedly leveraging their search engine into other markets. So we ignore it. Contrary to what people are saying, it is very clear where the 'line' was crossed from the competition perspective. Google has crossed that line multiple times in the past and gotten away free. It is more shocking, from a competition perspective, that they haven't been hit in the past. ___ [1] To explain the footnoted paragraph further: companies will offer to buy competitors that would bring it well past the market dominance high-water mark (different countries' legislation use different terminology to denote this point, but as a rule of thumb when you hit 40-50% of a given market, competition concerns arise). Companies then apply for regulator blessing for the entire acquisition knowing they won't get it. The hope is that the regulator will allow them to try to and keep all of the high-margin, high-value 'crown jewels' and make a show of disposing of underperforming assets. Doing this allows regulators the ability to say they exercised effective oversight, while the company is able to point to their balance sheet's performance over their competitors. Obtaining this advantage then allows them to raise at lower rates and fund activities to buy market share then rely on organic growth (which regulators don't take action against) to crush their opponents. This is a very standard market consolidation playbook for a player in the market.
• panoptispeech 9y ago
  The EU's power structure is currently occupied by people who reject the idea of value judgements, by post-modernists who don't understand the fragility of civilization. They literally believe that no thing is better than any other thing and that forcing equality of outcome is the highest virtue. These people will do a lot of damage before their system collapses. Who is John Galt?
• bengalister 9y ago
  Whether it is fair or not, I can't help but think it has something to do with the huge penalties European banks were sentenced to pay to the US treasury department in the last few years...
• ridewinter 9y ago
  Let's say Spotify began including a music recognition feature similar to Shazam. That would be really useful! Would this decision force Spotify to not include the feature because they have a monopoly on music streaming and it would force Shazam out of business? That just seems plain wrong.
  • M2Ys4U 9y ago
    Does Spotify have a dominant market position? They're big, for sure, but I would hardly call them "dominant".
• jondubois 9y ago
  I think this makes sense. The EU has to defend its producers as much as it defends its consumers. I wouldn't say that the EU is doing this at the expense of its consumers because I don't think that consumers actually get a better deal because this feature of Google. Google's initiative only serves to narrow down the options for consumers and funnel them to where Google wants them to go. Google's business is to steal people's free will and sell it to corporations. To be fair, I don't think it's much different from what all the other corporations are doing. All advertising ought to be taxed.
• omnimus 9y ago
  It might be very hard for business minded rich hacker news crowd to swallow but i think many EU citizens believe in regulations. It is not like US. On one hand google can do whatever they want because its their service and they don't force anyone to go there. On the other hand they have big monopoly so people can't really go anywhere else (they don't know better) - they are not really paying taxes in most of the EU countries and many times don't even comply with local laws because EU is just one big thing for them - not individual states. Let's not forget it is Google who is playing on EU ballpark - not the other way around. By the way - does anyone still believe that Google / Facebook or even the Internet are not utility? It seems it a lot like water/electricity/roads but for information.
• icetoad 9y ago
  Just once, I want a company being fined to just shut off service to the countries trying to fine them....
  • CobrastanJorji 9y ago
    It's not a 100% match, but some years back Spain came up with a system where Google News would be required to pay money to the news sites they linked to. Google responded by simply turning off Google News in Spain, which immediately cost Spanish news sites to lose a sizable percentage of traffic and millions of dollars in revenue: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/new-study-shows-spains-google-tax-has-been-a-disaster-for-publishers/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/new-study-shows-...
    • icetoad 9y ago
      awesome.... doesn't appear they did anything to rectify the service disconnect, nor any of the other Spanish site that shutdown as a result.
• petre 9y ago
  It's just a covert trade war with the US. The US fines VW, then the EU fines Google and Facebook and maybe Apple too. I don't like Google's practices or their ad network but this is just about taxes and clawing back some money after Google used Ireland and the Caymans to avoid paying some taxes in the EU. In the UK they got a slap on the back last year - some 300M in back taxes.
  • DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
    * The US fined VW fair and square. VW has a large North American business anyway - there is no significant US/EU "trade war". Besides, American car manufacturers like GM are also implicated: https://electrek.co/2017/05/25/gm-dieselgate-scandal/ https://electrek.co/2017/05/25/gm-dieselgate-scandal/ * Ireland is in the EU and contributes towards the EU's coffers. * The EU is also going after VW ( http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/eu-sues-germany-and-britain-over-volkswagen-emissions-scandal-a7462936.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/eu-sues-germ... ), but the responsibility in this case lies with individual member-state governments, rather than any single EU organ, and there is evidence that VW carefully gamed the situation so their defeat-devices were technically legal in the EU ( https://www.ft.com/content/0b9bf1d2-e486-11e6-9645-c9357a75844a?mhq5j=e1 https://www.ft.com/content/0b9bf1d2-e486-11e6-9645-c9357a758... )
    • petre 9y ago
      While I agree with all of your points, we have yet to see GM being fined in the US. Otherwise VW is probably the worst offender and still getting a pat on the back in the EU. The EU plans to punish VW since 2015. Rather than do that, they went after individual member states (backed by taxpayers) for failing to punish VW. Ireland gave some big corps special tax deals as it's the case with Apple. It's also used by big corps to pass earnings through as it had lower corporate taxes compared to other member states. This is an Irish feature and a flaw in the tax policies of other EU states, which the EU tried to fix with transfer taxes. What I am saying is that the EU is failing to punish VW while being maybe a little too harsh on US corps. I think we can all agree VW is a much worse offender than Google: selling cars that poison the air and lie about it vs. a few search results clearly labelled as sponsored ads up on the first page.
• subhrm 9y ago
  EU Just create your own search engine ! Height of stupidity . Glad that Britain is exiting EU .
• petre 9y ago
  It's just a covert trade war with the US. The US fines VW, then the EU fines Google and Facebook and maybe Apple too. I don't like Google's practices or their ad network but this is just about taxes and clawing back some money after Google used their Ireland subsidiary and banks in the Caymans to avoid paying some taxes in the EU. In the UK they got a slap on the back last year - some 130M pounds in back taxes. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/22/google-agrees-to-pay-hmrc-130m-in-back-taxes https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/22/google-ag...
• pyronik 9y ago
  Google helps push big government power and their ability to unilaterally interfere in markets. The fact it was used against them is poetic.
• luord 9y ago
  As usual, an anti-trust regulation puts on display the shortcomings of both capitalism and socialism. Stifling competition is bad, and it's bad that Google did it. Trying to meddle in someone's private property and stifling innovation, like the EU just did, is also bad. And ultimately some win (competitor companies) and some lose (the people who preferred the Google results, even if out of convenience). I see it as a showcase of how we, and thus our economic models, are flawed and will always be.
• emilfihlman 9y ago
  This is a) wayyyy too big of a fine And b) not motivated by customer protection but by greed alone. This was not a good thing.
• goferito 9y ago
  That money could have gone to continue Firefox OS :(
• yeahrightnyt 9y ago
  Fuck the EU.