7 ms·

What happens when Google says “we aren’t going to pay your fines”?

35 points by longstaff2009 8y ago

mcv 8y ago
If people's GMail and Android phones stop working, they may get angry at the French government, but outside France a lot of people would also want to move away from Google services like GMail, Android, etc, because Google would show your access to them can't be trusted. Google would lose a lot more users than just France. Yes, it would cause chaos in France, but it would also really hurt Google.
- longstaff2009 8y ago
  if Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft formed a union of sorts it would be hard to move away from
  - longstaff2009 8y ago
    Google has flexed its power and punished big companies for not playing nice in the past http://edition.cnn.com/2006/BUSINESS/02/07/google/ http://edition.cnn.com/2006/BUSINESS/02/07/google/
    - lukevdp 8y ago
      This particular instance seems to be for gaming search results - which google punishes across the board.
      - longstaff2009 8y ago
        it was, and it sent a strong message to other big companies that Google doesn't care who you are. This is Google's playground and if you want to stay in the search index then you play by Google's rules.
  - avmich 8y ago
    First few days. Then some solutions will appear, and for some weeks - and in some cases even months an industry of decoupling will grow so that somebody'll turn green of envy. Then slowly people will start forgetting that at a time there were some G, A, F, A, M...
    - longstaff2009 8y ago
      maybe for some cases, but then there are the government and industry bodies that have exabytes of data stored. if Amazon wont provide access to snowmobile to you it becomes problematic
      - avmich 8y ago
        Well, if it gets really inconvenient, I'd assume the industry will be invited to help with them, but I don't see how France or Europe position is weaker. You generally don't fight with your customers, and there are good reasons for that.
        longstaff2009 8y ago
        For a token fine I would agree. If the scale of the fines where to increase from a level that can be written off as the cost of doing business to something more damaging, I think that could change things. Particularly as we are seeing a rise in nationalist political movements around the world.
      - lykr0n 8y ago
        The thing about governments is that they can manifest their power in the form of people with guns showing up in places and forcing people to comply with them. If Amazon refuses to give back someone's data; if they are a government entity they show up to the Datacenter and put a gun to someones head. If they are a private entity, the sue Amazon, win, and then get a court order which they can have the police enforce.
        longstaff2009 8y ago
  - madeofpalk 8y ago
    In places like EU, this may be illegal cartel behaviour. In Australia, the Big Four banks applied to the consumer watchdog for permission to team together and negotiate as a block - form a cartel - to Apple over Apple Pay and NFC access. The banks were denied, and just last month the biggest bank added Apple Pay support (after a number of the 'smaller' ones added it).
    - rblatz 8y ago
      And what would they do? Force them to do business in their country? By presumably what means?
      - toast0 8y ago
        The EU could conceivably force them to choose to do business in all or none of the countries in the EU.
        longstaff2009 8y ago
        That would be a big gamble for each member country to make.
      - slimsag 8y ago
        - Detaining any executives of the company found within borders or in regions where extradition is possible. - Seizing all company assets, offices, source code, etc. - Breaking the company up and promoting in-borders employees into management positions, etc.
        wav-part 8y ago
        Its not like Corporations can pay someone else, say US or China, to protect their assets and people. US totally wont fk EUs shit up for few hundreds of billions. No sir, countries can seize and kidnap without consequences, because muh sovereignty.
        8y ago
  - heavenlyblue 8y ago
    Every time I hear comments of this sort, I immediately think of the French Revolution. Dynasty of emperors so detached from reality that the nation is willing to go to a civil war just to get rid of them? God bless FANG realise that their power over people is only there because they are providing free services that are for still useful. The moment those companies decide to play politics we, as a society, have already invented numerous methods of getting rid of the abusers of power. And let’s be honest: neither of those companies are making such a huge difference that we would ceise existing as a society if they perished. We would take a hit, but we would still function.
- writepub 8y ago
  If you've paid attention to Facebook's most recent quarterly, you'll realize that people don't really care about the things they claim to care about. Facebook's recent privacy breaches haven't really affected their bottom line. Likewise, a couple days of Google flexing it's power over France may not really cause a widespread exodus.
ctrlaltdev 8y ago
That would be the best thing that could ever happen. Refusal of service? I don't know anything that would make people run to another service faster.
- longstaff2009 8y ago
  for consumers maybe, but if you don't have access to your data its problematic. for business and government departments it could be crippling
  - longstaff2009 8y ago
    I did a few migration projects when I worked at the Discovery Channel and they took months of planning to ensure continuation of services.
    - avmich 8y ago
      So is Google promising continuation of services before turning them off?
      - longstaff2009 8y ago
        in the hypothetical scenario where France tries to enforce a huge fine and Google says no thanks, France pushes and then Google turns off service it would be crippling. Google has a lot of power in that sort of negotiation. Which is why I think it was only a token 0.05% of global revenue for the fine rather than 4%
        avmich 8y ago
        I'd expect law signatories to raise an eyebrow. The purpose of the law is different.
dgllghr 8y ago
"There are no nations. There are no peoples... There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars... It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And [France] has meddled with the primal forces of nature, and [France] will atone!" This is the dystopia we have built. We have allowed corporations to have to much leverage and control.
- longstaff2009 8y ago
  I think the extent of that leverage is not well understood. It's like AMI trying to blackmail Jeff Bezos, but having all of their sites hosted with AWS .... What happens when it makes business sense for Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook to start charging nation states a license fee for offering their services into their country and all the government services rely on their cloud offerings?
  - greenleafjacob 8y ago
    Presumably that nation state puts someone in jail.
    - longstaff2009 8y ago
      On what grounds? They would just be changing their business model
      - avmich 8y ago
        On the grounds of national security?
        longstaff2009 8y ago
        maybe, but when it comes to calling bluffs it would be much harder for the government to sustain continued denial of services than for Google et al to keep the case in court
Proven 8y ago
I like that the blogger laments against statism and the French nanny state, but he should remember that the "China Syndrome" is extremely unlikely to happen in Europe. First of all, these fines (and more importantly, "laws") are completely arbitrary so they could exist, or not. Mostly they're there to milk American companies in the EU. Second of all, these taxes, sorry - "fines" - are meant to optimize rent extraction by the fascist elite, not to make the Americans go away. In China, anything resembling elections would be the end of the Chinese Communist Party. In the West, all major parties are controlled by the same forces. That's why Google has to leave China or become managed by the communist party, while in France it's most welcome as long as they pay good fines.
avmich 8y ago
> At some point, compliance becomes bad business. It's not even funny. If compliance is bad business for you, well, your other choice is to not have business. Wonder what shareholders would say, but not too much. Not one of them.
- longstaff2009 8y ago
  So I think that is why the fine is 0.05% of global revenue instead of the full 4% that can be enforced under GDPR. Both the government and Google can spin it as a win. But say instead France asks for 4% of global revenue, and there are rumblings from Spain, Italy, Germany, UK, Sweden, Poland, Romania, Denmark and Greece that if France is successful they will do the same. Suddenly the potential fines are 40% of global revenue, but Europe doesn't generate 40% of global revenue.
  - avmich 8y ago
    The goal of GDPR is to discourage bad business practices. It's expected that fines should be prohibitive for predatory business models. Until Google will comply - or go out of business - the fines will grow. I mean, if somehow Google would manage to pay biggest possible fine without changing practices, I'd expect the law updated to bigger fines.
    - ardy42 8y ago
      > I mean, if somehow Google would manage to pay biggest possible fine without changing practices, I'd expect the law updated to bigger fines. And if they refused to pay, I imagine new laws would be passed to force compliance...such as criminal penalties against corporate executives and board members who choose to leave the fines unpaid. Sundar Pichai's going to have Google pay up if the alternative is that he could end up in a French jail.
salthound 8y ago
That's one silly power fantasy. But what if they really tried to do it? Well, the most likely outcome would be the US government declaring Google a risk to national security, and taking direct control. After all if this could happen to France, it could happen to the US, and governments of sovereign states really really hate non-state competitors that could potentially meddle with the operation of the state. After that, whatever remains of Google would probably be auctioned off to cover the costs of the backlash (and probable legal action) from Google's corporate clients.
- longstaff2009 8y ago
  I would call it a thought experiment rather than a power fantasy, but sure. Would it be a thread to US national security in the same way it could be to France? It might depend how the President at the time is and where their campaign funding came from. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez Proves Just How Easily Corporate PAC Money Can Influence Politics https://www.facebook.com/NowThisPolitics/videos/vb.908009612563863/427652531107960/?type=2&theater https://www.facebook.com/NowThisPolitics/videos/vb.908009612...
- mruts 8y ago
  You're saying that Google would be nationalized if they backed out of France? Notwithstanding that it would be illegal, how is choosing which countries to transact business in a breach of national security?
  - salthound 8y ago
    No. What the article details is not an ordinary exit from the French market, but an overnight attempt to pressure France into a change of government, which would involve disabling critical infrastructure and not fulfilling contractual and legal obligations in an attempt to make the French state unable to perform its functions. And yes, having a company with the power and will to "digitally coup" world powers would be an immediate threat to national security, no question about that. I don't know where you got the nationalization part from: U.S. courts and law enforcement are perfectly capable of taking temporary control of companies' resources in an effort to stop or prevent criminal activity, and none of that involves nationalizing anything.
aristus 8y ago
People forget this has already happened, more or less. In 2011 Google blackholed Belgium's newspapers when they got uppity. Pretty sure it happened a few times before that as well. https://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/0028255/belgian-newspapers-delisted-on-google https://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/0028255/belgian-new... Also, many years ago, Google ghosted CNET because they didn't like their reporting. They didn't blacklist them from results, but it was an option. https://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/ https://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/
- longstaff2009 8y ago
  I had missed these, thanks for sharing
- tjalfi 8y ago
  Another example is that Google News ended service in Spain after a link tax was passed[0]. [0] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/enrique-dans/google-news-leaving-spain_b_6325244.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/enrique-dans/google-news-leav...
siedes 8y ago
2.2 billion would not be worth the money to alienate an entire nation and cause major lashback around the world who hears of the news. Those are all potential customers. They would do better to just pay up. Now the question is, when will it be worth it for an all-powerful multinational corporation like Google to say fuck it and use their power to influence government policy on a global level? How much money or what would have to be at stake for them to turn their back on "Don't be evil"?
- longstaff2009 8y ago
  Yes ! At some point the cost of the reputation hit becomes less than the value of the fine. Google removed 'Don't be evil' from its code of conduct last year. Hopefully not a sign of things to come
- tyingq 8y ago
  I would guess an exodus from the other side too. Even though I'm not French, if Google blocks France...it affects me. I'd have to quit hosting my things on Google's cloud, app engine, Google drive, analytics, etc, if I expected people in France to be able to see it.
lykr0n 8y ago
The countries start seizing your assets, which for Google would be their Datacenters in Europe.
lukevdp 8y ago
Given that Google execs were having another crack at entering China (and all the “compliance” that comes with that) last year, my guess is that Google has a pretty high pain threshold for compliance.
bunnycorn 8y ago
Simply childish.
jonahb 8y ago
> Google is a business, it has a responsibility to make money for shareholders. This is its sole responsibility. Uh, where'd you get that from? The company has an obligation to act in the the interest of shareholders, but "interest" doesn't necessarily mean "money." Moreover, that's not its _only_ obligation. This guy seems to agree: https://www.cultofmac.com/268413/tim-cook-tells-profit-obsessed-investors-sell-stock/ https://www.cultofmac.com/268413/tim-cook-tells-profit-obses...
- longstaff2009 8y ago
  You are right, it should say "act in the interest of" rather than "make money".
sunstone 8y ago
Then the Googlers go to jail or they bomb Google's headquarters. Google is not a nation state and wouldn't last long in a fight. More seriously, check out Huawei to see how a huge company pissing off a large country is doing.
beerlord 8y ago
The average person doesn't care about privacy (they have nothing interesting to share anyway), and better-targeted ads makes capitalism more efficient. Plus, the services that ads enable are very widely used and popular. All that the EU has served to accomplish is to kill tech in Europe, place popups and opt-in buttons onto every website (accept cookies?), and to extort a few billions out of American tech companies. Europe can't do tech because its taxes on labour are too high and the whole continent speaks 30 different languages. There, I said it.
- unnouinceput 8y ago
  You forget that 'murica can't do tech either these days, hihi. With all the outsourcing these days hardly any tech is there to make anyway.
unnouinceput 8y ago
I cannot wait for this to happen. I dare, I double dare GAFA/FAANG or whatever acronym you want for them to make such move. I want them to flex their muscles to see who wins. My guess? DuckDuckGo, Linux and the likes. Maps? OpenMaps. Social network? I don't give a flying fly, definitely another in a year will rise. As for costs for not paying? Like all those companies don't have distributed offices to make local caches in each country? Rally them all up and auction baby. Get some money against those fines. I bet in 2 years all those companies will either disappear like Kodak when refused to change with times or they will comply with GDPR big time. I have news for Ben Longstaff, the article's author, GDPR is new times; your "My guess? Not long." is shortsighted.
julienfr112 8y ago
With that kind of "whatif" and "let's imagine that", what about target assassination of Google Executives by the French DGSE ? I don't think that D. Trump would give a damn about west coast liberals strangely dying in there sleep ... Or what about the French launching nuclear missiles on all google center (maybe except the one that are hosted on nuclear power) at once ?
davidgh 8y ago
I think the big tech companies are just fine with increasing regulation. They are in position to manage them, and benefit from the fact that the regulatory environment makes it that much more difficult for new companies to enter the market.
upstandingdude 8y ago
Spoken like a true american...

35 points by longstaff2009 8y ago

mcv 8y ago

If people's GMail and Android phones stop working, they may get angry at the French government, but outside France a lot of people would also want to move away from Google services like GMail, Android, etc, because Google would show your access to them can't be trusted. Google would lose a lot more users than just France. Yes, it would cause chaos in France, but it would also really hurt Google.

longstaff2009 8y ago
if Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft formed a union of sorts it would be hard to move away from
- longstaff2009 8y ago
  Google has flexed its power and punished big companies for not playing nice in the past http://edition.cnn.com/2006/BUSINESS/02/07/google/ http://edition.cnn.com/2006/BUSINESS/02/07/google/
  - lukevdp 8y ago
    This particular instance seems to be for gaming search results - which google punishes across the board.
    - longstaff2009 8y ago
      it was, and it sent a strong message to other big companies that Google doesn't care who you are. This is Google's playground and if you want to stay in the search index then you play by Google's rules.
- avmich 8y ago
  First few days. Then some solutions will appear, and for some weeks - and in some cases even months an industry of decoupling will grow so that somebody'll turn green of envy. Then slowly people will start forgetting that at a time there were some G, A, F, A, M...
  - longstaff2009 8y ago
    maybe for some cases, but then there are the government and industry bodies that have exabytes of data stored. if Amazon wont provide access to snowmobile to you it becomes problematic
    - avmich 8y ago
      Well, if it gets really inconvenient, I'd assume the industry will be invited to help with them, but I don't see how France or Europe position is weaker. You generally don't fight with your customers, and there are good reasons for that.
      - longstaff2009 8y ago
        For a token fine I would agree. If the scale of the fines where to increase from a level that can be written off as the cost of doing business to something more damaging, I think that could change things. Particularly as we are seeing a rise in nationalist political movements around the world.
    - lykr0n 8y ago
      The thing about governments is that they can manifest their power in the form of people with guns showing up in places and forcing people to comply with them. If Amazon refuses to give back someone's data; if they are a government entity they show up to the Datacenter and put a gun to someones head. If they are a private entity, the sue Amazon, win, and then get a court order which they can have the police enforce.
      - longstaff2009 8y ago
- madeofpalk 8y ago
  In places like EU, this may be illegal cartel behaviour. In Australia, the Big Four banks applied to the consumer watchdog for permission to team together and negotiate as a block - form a cartel - to Apple over Apple Pay and NFC access. The banks were denied, and just last month the biggest bank added Apple Pay support (after a number of the 'smaller' ones added it).
  - rblatz 8y ago
    And what would they do? Force them to do business in their country? By presumably what means?
    - toast0 8y ago
      The EU could conceivably force them to choose to do business in all or none of the countries in the EU.
      - longstaff2009 8y ago
        That would be a big gamble for each member country to make.
    - slimsag 8y ago
      - Detaining any executives of the company found within borders or in regions where extradition is possible. - Seizing all company assets, offices, source code, etc. - Breaking the company up and promoting in-borders employees into management positions, etc.
      - wav-part 8y ago
        Its not like Corporations can pay someone else, say US or China, to protect their assets and people. US totally wont fk EUs shit up for few hundreds of billions. No sir, countries can seize and kidnap without consequences, because muh sovereignty.
        8y ago
- heavenlyblue 8y ago
  Every time I hear comments of this sort, I immediately think of the French Revolution. Dynasty of emperors so detached from reality that the nation is willing to go to a civil war just to get rid of them? God bless FANG realise that their power over people is only there because they are providing free services that are for still useful. The moment those companies decide to play politics we, as a society, have already invented numerous methods of getting rid of the abusers of power. And let’s be honest: neither of those companies are making such a huge difference that we would ceise existing as a society if they perished. We would take a hit, but we would still function.
writepub 8y ago
If you've paid attention to Facebook's most recent quarterly, you'll realize that people don't really care about the things they claim to care about. Facebook's recent privacy breaches haven't really affected their bottom line. Likewise, a couple days of Google flexing it's power over France may not really cause a widespread exodus.

ctrlaltdev 8y ago

That would be the best thing that could ever happen. Refusal of service? I don't know anything that would make people run to another service faster.

longstaff2009 8y ago
for consumers maybe, but if you don't have access to your data its problematic. for business and government departments it could be crippling
- longstaff2009 8y ago
  I did a few migration projects when I worked at the Discovery Channel and they took months of planning to ensure continuation of services.
  - avmich 8y ago
    So is Google promising continuation of services before turning them off?
    - longstaff2009 8y ago
      in the hypothetical scenario where France tries to enforce a huge fine and Google says no thanks, France pushes and then Google turns off service it would be crippling. Google has a lot of power in that sort of negotiation. Which is why I think it was only a token 0.05% of global revenue for the fine rather than 4%
      - avmich 8y ago
        I'd expect law signatories to raise an eyebrow. The purpose of the law is different.

dgllghr 8y ago

"There are no nations. There are no peoples... There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars... It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And [France] has meddled with the primal forces of nature, and [France] will atone!" This is the dystopia we have built. We have allowed corporations to have to much leverage and control.

longstaff2009 8y ago
I think the extent of that leverage is not well understood. It's like AMI trying to blackmail Jeff Bezos, but having all of their sites hosted with AWS .... What happens when it makes business sense for Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook to start charging nation states a license fee for offering their services into their country and all the government services rely on their cloud offerings?
- greenleafjacob 8y ago
  Presumably that nation state puts someone in jail.
  - longstaff2009 8y ago
    On what grounds? They would just be changing their business model
    - avmich 8y ago
      On the grounds of national security?
      - longstaff2009 8y ago
        maybe, but when it comes to calling bluffs it would be much harder for the government to sustain continued denial of services than for Google et al to keep the case in court

Proven 8y ago

I like that the blogger laments against statism and the French nanny state, but he should remember that the "China Syndrome" is extremely unlikely to happen in Europe. First of all, these fines (and more importantly, "laws") are completely arbitrary so they could exist, or not. Mostly they're there to milk American companies in the EU. Second of all, these taxes, sorry - "fines" - are meant to optimize rent extraction by the fascist elite, not to make the Americans go away. In China, anything resembling elections would be the end of the Chinese Communist Party. In the West, all major parties are controlled by the same forces. That's why Google has to leave China or become managed by the communist party, while in France it's most welcome as long as they pay good fines.

avmich 8y ago

> At some point, compliance becomes bad business. It's not even funny. If compliance is bad business for you, well, your other choice is to not have business. Wonder what shareholders would say, but not too much. Not one of them.

longstaff2009 8y ago
So I think that is why the fine is 0.05% of global revenue instead of the full 4% that can be enforced under GDPR. Both the government and Google can spin it as a win. But say instead France asks for 4% of global revenue, and there are rumblings from Spain, Italy, Germany, UK, Sweden, Poland, Romania, Denmark and Greece that if France is successful they will do the same. Suddenly the potential fines are 40% of global revenue, but Europe doesn't generate 40% of global revenue.
- avmich 8y ago
  The goal of GDPR is to discourage bad business practices. It's expected that fines should be prohibitive for predatory business models. Until Google will comply - or go out of business - the fines will grow. I mean, if somehow Google would manage to pay biggest possible fine without changing practices, I'd expect the law updated to bigger fines.
  - ardy42 8y ago
    > I mean, if somehow Google would manage to pay biggest possible fine without changing practices, I'd expect the law updated to bigger fines. And if they refused to pay, I imagine new laws would be passed to force compliance...such as criminal penalties against corporate executives and board members who choose to leave the fines unpaid. Sundar Pichai's going to have Google pay up if the alternative is that he could end up in a French jail.

salthound 8y ago

That's one silly power fantasy. But what if they really tried to do it? Well, the most likely outcome would be the US government declaring Google a risk to national security, and taking direct control. After all if this could happen to France, it could happen to the US, and governments of sovereign states really really hate non-state competitors that could potentially meddle with the operation of the state. After that, whatever remains of Google would probably be auctioned off to cover the costs of the backlash (and probable legal action) from Google's corporate clients.

longstaff2009 8y ago
I would call it a thought experiment rather than a power fantasy, but sure. Would it be a thread to US national security in the same way it could be to France? It might depend how the President at the time is and where their campaign funding came from. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez Proves Just How Easily Corporate PAC Money Can Influence Politics https://www.facebook.com/NowThisPolitics/videos/vb.908009612563863/427652531107960/?type=2&theater https://www.facebook.com/NowThisPolitics/videos/vb.908009612...
mruts 8y ago
You're saying that Google would be nationalized if they backed out of France? Notwithstanding that it would be illegal, how is choosing which countries to transact business in a breach of national security?
- salthound 8y ago
  No. What the article details is not an ordinary exit from the French market, but an overnight attempt to pressure France into a change of government, which would involve disabling critical infrastructure and not fulfilling contractual and legal obligations in an attempt to make the French state unable to perform its functions. And yes, having a company with the power and will to "digitally coup" world powers would be an immediate threat to national security, no question about that. I don't know where you got the nationalization part from: U.S. courts and law enforcement are perfectly capable of taking temporary control of companies' resources in an effort to stop or prevent criminal activity, and none of that involves nationalizing anything.

aristus 8y ago

People forget this has already happened, more or less. In 2011 Google blackholed Belgium's newspapers when they got uppity. Pretty sure it happened a few times before that as well. https://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/0028255/belgian-newspapers-delisted-on-google https://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/0028255/belgian-new... Also, many years ago, Google ghosted CNET because they didn't like their reporting. They didn't blacklist them from results, but it was an option. https://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/ https://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/

longstaff2009 8y ago
I had missed these, thanks for sharing
tjalfi 8y ago
Another example is that Google News ended service in Spain after a link tax was passed[0]. [0] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/enrique-dans/google-news-leaving-spain_b_6325244.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/enrique-dans/google-news-leav...

siedes 8y ago

2.2 billion would not be worth the money to alienate an entire nation and cause major lashback around the world who hears of the news. Those are all potential customers. They would do better to just pay up. Now the question is, when will it be worth it for an all-powerful multinational corporation like Google to say fuck it and use their power to influence government policy on a global level? How much money or what would have to be at stake for them to turn their back on "Don't be evil"?

longstaff2009 8y ago
Yes ! At some point the cost of the reputation hit becomes less than the value of the fine. Google removed 'Don't be evil' from its code of conduct last year. Hopefully not a sign of things to come
tyingq 8y ago
I would guess an exodus from the other side too. Even though I'm not French, if Google blocks France...it affects me. I'd have to quit hosting my things on Google's cloud, app engine, Google drive, analytics, etc, if I expected people in France to be able to see it.

lykr0n 8y ago

The countries start seizing your assets, which for Google would be their Datacenters in Europe.

lukevdp 8y ago

Given that Google execs were having another crack at entering China (and all the “compliance” that comes with that) last year, my guess is that Google has a pretty high pain threshold for compliance.

bunnycorn 8y ago

Simply childish.

jonahb 8y ago

> Google is a business, it has a responsibility to make money for shareholders. This is its sole responsibility. Uh, where'd you get that from? The company has an obligation to act in the the interest of shareholders, but "interest" doesn't necessarily mean "money." Moreover, that's not its _only_ obligation. This guy seems to agree: https://www.cultofmac.com/268413/tim-cook-tells-profit-obsessed-investors-sell-stock/ https://www.cultofmac.com/268413/tim-cook-tells-profit-obses...

longstaff2009 8y ago
You are right, it should say "act in the interest of" rather than "make money".

sunstone 8y ago

Then the Googlers go to jail or they bomb Google's headquarters. Google is not a nation state and wouldn't last long in a fight. More seriously, check out Huawei to see how a huge company pissing off a large country is doing.

beerlord 8y ago

The average person doesn't care about privacy (they have nothing interesting to share anyway), and better-targeted ads makes capitalism more efficient. Plus, the services that ads enable are very widely used and popular. All that the EU has served to accomplish is to kill tech in Europe, place popups and opt-in buttons onto every website (accept cookies?), and to extort a few billions out of American tech companies. Europe can't do tech because its taxes on labour are too high and the whole continent speaks 30 different languages. There, I said it.

unnouinceput 8y ago
You forget that 'murica can't do tech either these days, hihi. With all the outsourcing these days hardly any tech is there to make anyway.

unnouinceput 8y ago

I cannot wait for this to happen. I dare, I double dare GAFA/FAANG or whatever acronym you want for them to make such move. I want them to flex their muscles to see who wins. My guess? DuckDuckGo, Linux and the likes. Maps? OpenMaps. Social network? I don't give a flying fly, definitely another in a year will rise. As for costs for not paying? Like all those companies don't have distributed offices to make local caches in each country? Rally them all up and auction baby. Get some money against those fines. I bet in 2 years all those companies will either disappear like Kodak when refused to change with times or they will comply with GDPR big time. I have news for Ben Longstaff, the article's author, GDPR is new times; your "My guess? Not long." is shortsighted.

julienfr112 8y ago

With that kind of "whatif" and "let's imagine that", what about target assassination of Google Executives by the French DGSE ? I don't think that D. Trump would give a damn about west coast liberals strangely dying in there sleep ... Or what about the French launching nuclear missiles on all google center (maybe except the one that are hosted on nuclear power) at once ?

davidgh 8y ago

I think the big tech companies are just fine with increasing regulation. They are in position to manage them, and benefit from the fact that the regulatory environment makes it that much more difficult for new companies to enter the market.

upstandingdude 8y ago

Spoken like a true american...