At this point in time, I am honestly surprised at the lack of balance in this conversation. While I'm writing this, the entire discussion is a bunch of pile-on

At this point in time, I am honestly surprised at the lack of balance in this conversation. While I'm writing this, the entire discussion is a bunch of pile-on for Google without any consideration of the actual facts in this case. Today is a sad day for the internet. In phone book terms, the business model of this couple was roughly equivalent to plastering stickers with their phone number over all the other entries in the phone book. Any end user wishing to get the information they wanted had to go through an unnecessary step. Any destination, had to fight to prevent their content from being overrun. I am both a European and an American, and the fact of the matter is that the European Commission is attempting to stifle American business. This ruling does not protect users, and does not protect valid businesses, it protects spammers. Instead of trying to legislate our way into competitiveness, I would like to see our countries focus on actually attempting to stimulate tech businesses, because attempts like these just hurt technology companies overall. Sure, it hurts American companies more than Europeans, but they're also in a better position to shoulder the burden. This makes it tougher for smaller European tech shops.