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If a company creates damages exceeding billions of dollars, it's quite obvious that they should receive penalty worth billions of dollars. That's basic proport

by Radle 8y ago

If a company creates damages exceeding billions of dollars, it's quite obvious that they should receive penalty worth billions of dollars. That's basic proportionality.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> If a company creates damages exceeding billions of dollars, it's quite obvious that they should receive penalty worth billions of dollars. That is entirely tautological. It omits the reasoning under which that spectacular amount of irreparable damages have actually occurred to consumers. "They have a lot of money and we would like to have that" is not a valid method of calculating damages.
- Joeri 8y ago
  From the press release: the fine has been calculated on the basis of the value of Google's revenue from search advertising services on Android devices in the EEA. In other words, Google had an unfair advantage for search on android devices and leveraged that into revenue. The fine is a percentage of that ill-gotten revenue. There’s an official guideline for calculating damages when anticompetitive behavior is found: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:52006XC0901(01) https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:52...
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    > the fine has been calculated on the basis of the value of Google's revenue from search advertising services on Android devices in the EEA. "They have a lot of money and we would like to have that." The actual "damages" have nothing to do with their total revenue, only the revenue incident to the behavior in question, which is an independent value and not a percentage of total revenue. For example, if they improve their search engine which causes more people to use it, it doesn't change the actual amount of damage from separate actions -- it may even reduce it by transitioning some of the defaulted users into users who would make an affirmative choice in their favor -- but it would have increased the amount of the fine when calculated as a percentage of revenue because it would have increased their total revenue.
    - Brockenstein 8y ago
      Well you're making some assumptions about damages and maybe have opinions what constitutes damages. I think the other side you have to consider is if revenue related to wrong doing is in the billions and your fine is in the thousands, it's toothless. Companies will gladly pay a pittance in fines over and over again against billions in revenue. That's not ideal from and enforcement standpoint. It doesn't get companies to follow the law and play by the rules. There's consequences for that too, voters have opinions about their governments letting companies run amok without any real consequences or deterrents.
      - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
        > I think the other side you have to consider is if revenue related to wrong doing is in the billions and your fine is in the thousands, it's toothless. If the revenue related to wrong doing is in the billions and the harm is in the thousands, attempting to prohibit the conduct instead of imposing a small tax and using the money to compensate the victims is obviously a large dead-weight economic loss.
- cuban-frisbee 8y ago
  It may not be a reasonable way of calculating damages but it is a reasonable way of punishing wrong doing.

by Radle 8y ago

If a company creates damages exceeding billions of dollars, it's quite obvious that they should receive penalty worth billions of dollars. That's basic proportionality.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

> If a company creates damages exceeding billions of dollars, it's quite obvious that they should receive penalty worth billions of dollars. That is entirely tautological. It omits the reasoning under which that spectacular amount of irreparable damages have actually occurred to consumers. "They have a lot of money and we would like to have that" is not a valid method of calculating damages.

Joeri 8y ago
From the press release: the fine has been calculated on the basis of the value of Google's revenue from search advertising services on Android devices in the EEA. In other words, Google had an unfair advantage for search on android devices and leveraged that into revenue. The fine is a percentage of that ill-gotten revenue. There’s an official guideline for calculating damages when anticompetitive behavior is found: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:52006XC0901(01) https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:52...
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > the fine has been calculated on the basis of the value of Google's revenue from search advertising services on Android devices in the EEA. "They have a lot of money and we would like to have that." The actual "damages" have nothing to do with their total revenue, only the revenue incident to the behavior in question, which is an independent value and not a percentage of total revenue. For example, if they improve their search engine which causes more people to use it, it doesn't change the actual amount of damage from separate actions -- it may even reduce it by transitioning some of the defaulted users into users who would make an affirmative choice in their favor -- but it would have increased the amount of the fine when calculated as a percentage of revenue because it would have increased their total revenue.
  - Brockenstein 8y ago
    Well you're making some assumptions about damages and maybe have opinions what constitutes damages. I think the other side you have to consider is if revenue related to wrong doing is in the billions and your fine is in the thousands, it's toothless. Companies will gladly pay a pittance in fines over and over again against billions in revenue. That's not ideal from and enforcement standpoint. It doesn't get companies to follow the law and play by the rules. There's consequences for that too, voters have opinions about their governments letting companies run amok without any real consequences or deterrents.
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      > I think the other side you have to consider is if revenue related to wrong doing is in the billions and your fine is in the thousands, it's toothless. If the revenue related to wrong doing is in the billions and the harm is in the thousands, attempting to prohibit the conduct instead of imposing a small tax and using the money to compensate the victims is obviously a large dead-weight economic loss.
cuban-frisbee 8y ago
It may not be a reasonable way of calculating damages but it is a reasonable way of punishing wrong doing.