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Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising
- peteretep 8y agoThe EU feels to me like one of the few forces for good in the world at the moment
- okket 8y agoThere was a commentary in the German media in context of Brexit that I think really think sums the EU and her role in the world up nicely: "Brexit shows what we have in the EU. She clears up issues among neighbors, grating them into rules and sometimes unsatisfactory compromises. But she grates them small, in a civilized and peaceful way. That's her big achievement." (rough translation by me, sorry) https://twitter.com/tagesschau/status/1105932622000209921 https://twitter.com/tagesschau/status/1105932622000209921 (in German)
- arethuza 8y agoWorth remembering that a lot of people in the UK, possibly a majority by this point, are perfectly clear as to what we stand to lose if the UK leaves the EU. :-(
- chewz 8y agoPack your bags and come over here. ;-)
- chronogram 8y agoOh agreed! And don’t forget the tea. Just skip the second referendum and let all the remain voters hang out over here, so we can have tea with baguette forever.
- est31 8y agoIn Germany we say that the EU has replaced the battleground with the negotiation table. That's what it's got the Nobel peace prize for and I think it deserved it.
- mattmanser 8y agoI don't think there was any prospect of war between the EU countries while the USSR was around, it seems folly to pin peace to an institution when it was a greater enemy that actually united us.
- flohofwoe 8y agoIMHO the EU is a direct result of the two World Wars, not the Cold War (we're only starting to see the results of the Cold War now).
- Nasrudith 8y agoYeah the League of Nations was the result of the first one and it failed. Given the sheer slaughter they needed a way to forge peace as it clearly was massively self destructive. I am not sure how true it was but I heard a theory that Europe lost much of its intellectual prominence due to so many young men dying in the trenches in WW1 - now Europe does good intellectual work now but it is more "neat thing out of Europe" as opposed to "the hotspot". I am not well equipped to evaluate the merits but the idea is interesting at very least.
- mamon 8y agoYes, after two failed attempts to conquer Europe by military force, Germans finally realized they can achieve the same effect much easier with their economical power and then created EU :)
- Scarblac 8y agoWW2 happened while the USSR was around.
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- tnr23 8y agoabsolutely
- growlist 8y agoLet's not pretend it's not a mixed bag, e.g.: 'European multinationals are aggressively pursuing one of milk’s few growth markets, where locals say they can’t compete.' https://www.politico.eu/article/eus-milk-scramble-for-africa/ https://www.politico.eu/article/eus-milk-scramble-for-africa...
- ath92 8y agoThat article is about European multinationals, not the EU
- NicoJuicy 8y agoWeird, since there is already a milk quota in place in Europe. I don't think it's related to the EU as institution
- Cthulhu_ 8y agoI just read the quoted headline, but it's not about quotas but EU based multinationals extending their business / exporting milk powder to Africa, tripling exports in 10 years (2006 - 2016) and competing with local farmers to the point they are put out of business. Not sure how the EU fits in there, other than that they provide an economic and legislative climate that allows milk prices to go low enough to make such a business viable.
- NicoJuicy 8y agoThen the comment isn't related to the headline
- clb4mf 8y agoIt really is a mixed bag, but here in HN the EU gets very good publicity because it's always compared to the US. (Not that I'm pro-EU or anything)
- Cthulhu_ 8y agoAt the same time, the EU spends a lot of money on subsidies just so that farms (big and small) can keep their head above water. I wouldn't mind if that was changed somewhat, give smaller farms more survivability, but at the same time it's the market forces that should be changed so that farmers get fairer prices for their products.
- bromuro 8y agoOh no worries those bureaucracists just don’t know how to fix the economies they destroyed and are just trying the last resorts.
- easytiger 8y agoPretty naieve view to accept an effectively unaccountable body of such incredible size. Almost every policy is without a voter mandate.
- icebraining 8y agoYou don't have to accept it to recognize that it can do good things.
- Kurtz79 8y agoYou could say the same about your own country's government. Do you get a vote over antitrust regulations enacted by your own government? You usually vote a party which might (or not) have a high-level guidelines over a few select policies, but otherwise trust them to make the best decision based on how their political view matches with yours. You elect EU parliament member the same way, and you are free to vote otherwise if you do not like their work (and yes, the actual effect of your individual vote is statistically irrelevant, just as the vote for your own government).
- easytiger 8y agoSo you think scaling that up to a massive scale where a handful of interests, namely France and Germany, have near complete sway over the agenda makes sense?
- Kurtz79 8y agoFrance and Germany have the most members, but not nearly enough to take decision by themselves or have control of the agenda. Besides, the point is moot, because parliament members tend to group themselves based on shared political views, rather than by country. That countries with more population should have more representation and more weight in the decisions, to me makes sense.
- easytiger 8y ago> France and Germany have the most members, but not nearly enough to take decision by themselves or have control of the agenda. I can but laugh
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- PHGamer 8y agonaw. just a giant nationstate trying to control its own resources. theres nothing good about it. at best you could argue its neutral. Personally i see this as nothing more than the occasional revenue dipping. Big companies have to take it because of the market and the eu knows this. anytime theyre short on funds theyll fine facebook or google.
- rplnt 8y agoDid Google ever pay one of these fines?
- mdkdog 8y agoSeriously, is there any way for us to see if they paid any of this.?
- benjaminsuch 8y agoWhy do you assume they didn't?
- stefano 8y agoI don't know if that's the case with OP, but there's a good amount of HN users who think internet companies are above the law. Some of them also cheer it as a good thing.
- rplnt 8y agoFirst of all, I didn't assume they didn't, not sure how you came up with that. And I asked because I remember that they appealed a fine like this in the past, and I do not know how it was resolved.
- kabsekabtak 8y agoDid they stop doing what got them fined?
- icebraining 8y agoYes, two years ago, in fact.
- simonster 8y agoYes. They are a significant enough expense that they are a separate line item on SEC filings (search for "European Commission fines" in https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204419000004/goog10-kq42018.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204419...).
- maaaats 8y agoIs there an other article with some background / explanation what Google did in this case? That they were "blocking others" doesn't tell me much. Edit: The linked article is now updated, at the time it was basically just a paragraph stating the fine.
- perttir 8y agoThey were setting chrome as default browser in android. Also they did not allow chaning the default search engine so easily.
- Pyxl101 8y agoI believe you are referring to a different case than this one. That Android decision was in July 2018: > In July 2018, the Commission fined Google €4.34 billion for illegal practices regarding Android mobile devices to strengthen the dominance of Google's search engine. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-4581_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-4581_en.htm
- Pyxl101 8y agoHere are a few key claims about what Google did, from the European commission press release: > Google's provision of online search advertising intermediation services to the most commercially important publishers took place via agreements that were individually negotiated. The Commission has reviewed hundreds of such agreements in the course of its investigation and found that: > Starting in 2006, Google included exclusivity clauses in its contracts. This meant that publishers were prohibited from placing any search adverts from competitors on their search results pages. The decision concerns publishers whose agreements with Google required such exclusivity for all their websites. > As of March 2009, Google gradually began replacing the exclusivity clauses with so-called “Premium Placement” clauses. These required publishers to reserve the most profitable space on their search results pages for Google's adverts and request a minimum number of Google adverts. As a result, Google's competitorswere prevented from placing their search adverts in the most visible and clicked on parts of the websites' search results pages. > As of March 2009, Google also included clauses requiring publishers to seek written approval from Google before making changes to the way in which any rival adverts were displayed. This meant that Google could control how attractive, and therefore clicked on, competing search adverts could be. > Therefore, Google first imposed an exclusive supply obligation, which prevented competitors from placing any search adverts on the commercially most significant websites. Then, Google introduced what it called its “relaxed exclusivity” strategy aimed at reserving for its own search adverts the most valuable positions and at controlling competing adverts' performance. > Google's practices covered over half the market by turnover throughout most of the period. Google's rivals were not able to compete on the merits, either because there was an outright prohibition for them to appear on publisher websites or because Google reserved for itself by far the most valuable commercial space on those websites, while at the same time controlling how rival search adverts could appear. From: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-19-1770_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-19-1770_en.htm
- mtgx 8y ago"We love competition; here's what we're doing to show you how much we love it!" - Google hours before being fined in anti-trust case.
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoWell, they did just say they're going to allow EU Android users to select a different browser and search engine.
- icebraining 8y agoThey are being fined for behavior that stopped in 2016. I wouldn't bet on Google's current intentions, but being fined now doesn't mean anything.
- kabsekabtak 8y agoGoogle needs to be broken up. If Microsoft could be broken up, Google deserves it 100x. They control way too much.
- askvictor 8y agoWhen did Microsoft get broken up?
- robin_reala 8y agoIt was the result of a (later overturned) ruling in 2000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#Judgment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...
- curt15 8y agoSo basically nothing happened in the end?
- black_puppydog 8y agoevidently. but it was seriously considered. and they "only" controlled desktop at the time. which was everything. but still! :D
- stingraycharles 8y agoApparently Microsoft invested into Apple around that time. Apple was doing poorly, and Microsoft “needed” a competitor to show that they are not completely dominating the market. Right after the case was settled, Microsoft sold their shares again. It’s said that this investment likely helped Apple survive through that period. Given Apple’s market position right now, it’s not a stretch to assume this to be a direct result of the antitrust case against Microsoft.
- AnaniasAnanas 8y agoGoogle does indeed need to be broken up, but much less than Microsoft. Google has actually done good for the whole world with their open source initiatives, opening of webm, etc - plus all(?) of their products are easily replaceable, unlike say windows which has exclusive programs written for it.
- feketegy 8y agoThen look at GDPR, which is a mess imho, and article 13 too
- martin_a 8y agoGDPR is quite good actually, we will just need to find a way to use its power for good.
- kypro 8y agoIt's good for US tech because it is yet another cost and restriction EU startups have to face before they can grow to scale and profitability.
- Dylan16807 8y agoIt's a very small cost that all companies should already be able to handle if they're to be trusted with personal data.
- pushpop 8y agoThat's the crux of it. It's not asking companies to do anything they shouldn't have already been doing if they were conscious about security. The problem is it's been blown completely out of proportion to a point where by son's child minder sent out letters asking for our permission to contact us if our child is unwell (Of course she should - that isn't unsolicited contact. She was already covered!).
- martin_a 8y ago> The problem is it's been blown completely out of proportion [...] Yeah, but blame that on the lawyers who wanted to cash in on this new regulation. I think only _very few_ people/business owners actually took the time to read the GDPR and think about whether all of that even applies to them. Most just became a victim of the fearmongering around all of that.
- a_imho 8y agoSlap on the wrist.
- buboard 8y agomore like a part of the wrist itself. They are racking up $7B in fines at the moment
- a_imho 8y agoYet my takeaway is it pays not to follow regulations.
- icebraining 8y agoI'd love to know how you got to that conclusion. Do you have internal reports from Google detailing the extra income brought by these behaviors?
- a_imho 8y agoThey have been fined for abusing their position for a decade. Actually I would really prefer if they were banned from conducting business in Europe. For a decade. No fines are needed.
- WA 8y ago- "Let's make rules that cripple our competitors and see how long we can get away with it." - "What can we earn?" - "Billions." - "What's it going to cost?" - "Less than what we're going to make." - "Let's do it!"
- __ka 8y agoOfficial Press Release from European Commission: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-19-1770_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-19-1770_en.htm
- boggio 8y ago> They were setting chrome as default browser in android. Also they did not allow changing the default search engine so easily. Isn't this the same case with Safari on iOS devices? Update: I posted this before the motivation was published.
- isolli 8y agoI guess the difference is market share...
- rimliu 8y agoAnd the fact that iOS is installed on devices made by Apple itself. Android is the OS used by different phone manufacturers.
- boudin 8y agoIf iOS would have the marketshare of Android, it would be hit by the same regulations.
- Carnageous 8y agoAgreed, and this needs to stop in my opinion. The EU makes an enormous amount of money by suing tech-giants over and over again without doing enough research to know what companies in this sector are doing.
- cbg0 8y agoThey have a very good idea of what the tech giants are doing, don't you worry.
- boudin 8y agoThose aren't based on nothing. There is laws and being a tech giant doesn't grant the right to go around those. If those fines aren't justified, those companies can use the justice system in place to fight back, like everybody else. It's not a free for all, get free money from tech companies with no legal background. Antitrust laws aren't specific to EU by the way.
- perttir 8y agoThat's small money for the Google. Last year they gave Google €4.34bn fine and in year 2017 they gave Google €2.42bn fine.
- dagw 8y agoBasically, at this point I'm sure there is a standing ~€2.5 bn section in Google's annual budget simply labeled "misc. EU fines". If they manage to keep it under €2bn in any given year they probably consider that a win and pay out bonuses to their legal team.
- bratah 8y agoThe legal team must be proud of their achievement
- yulaow 8y agoThe fine is only part of the EUC action, the fined entity has also the obligation to change their behavior as suggested by EUC to stop asap their abusive actions.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoHow do you reconcile this with the knowledge they’ve been fine $x billion every year for the past 3 years (at least?)? At what point does Big Corp run out of things to abuse? If the fines just become a cost of doing business the finance and legal teams can probably get creative and invent new ways of mashing up old abuses over time. I think the underlying theme here, then, is that the fines are necessary but not sufficient.
- Aissen 8y agoThat's why there's this provision in the official EU press release: Finally, Google is also liable to face civil actions for damages that can be brought before the courts of the Member States by any person or business affected by its anti-competitive behaviour. The new EU Antitrust Damages Directive makes it easier for victims of anti-competitive practices to obtain damages.
- amelius 8y agoWith 500 million EU citizens, that's about €3 per person. This makes me wonder, how much does Google make from showing ads to one person?
- matt4077 8y agoaround $70 p. a. IIRC.
- isostatic 8y agoHopefully far more than €3 a year. What price do we sell our personal data for?
- mhsabbagh 8y agoThe price of using Google.com, YouTube.com, Gmail.com and many many other services, for free.
- freeflight 8y agoAnd I thought I was "paying" for that by having 15 minutes long "ads" thrown at me every for every 5 minutes of content I watch. YouTube seems to be getting really bad in that regard, even worse than TV.
- sosodev 8y agoThat's not quite right. While you can get ads that are 15 minutes long they can always be skipped within 5 seconds. That's not even comparable to television.
- kabacha 8y agoI've gotten some 20+ seconds unskipable ads. That's the moment when I simply switched to MPV for watching youtube videos as the ads keep squeezing through every adblock filter I've tried once in a while.
- kierenj 8y agoI was wondering where funds from such a fine go: "Fines imposed on companies found in breach of EU antitrust rules are paid into the general EU budget. This money is not earmarked for particular expenses, but Member States' contributions to the EU budget for the following year are reduced accordingly. The fines therefore help to finance the EU and reduce the burden for taxpayers."
- black_puppydog 8y agosounds reasonable to me. this way, you get a disincetive to break antitrust rules for google, while not opening up a fight for shares of the money by their competitors afterwards. EUR 1.5b (~$1.7b) is a nice sum to fight over, after all. edit: of course, how big the disincentive is is up for debate. :P
- zaarn 8y ago1.5b€ isn't a lot; Germany + France + UK = 5 Trillion (5,000 billion) as a sibling comment mentioned. They don't care about 1 billion here or there.
- black_puppydog 8y agoIt would be a lot for any one of Google's competitors to fight over. That is, if the money were e.g. supposed to go directly to the competitors that were harmed here, there would be a huge allocation fight within minutes of this decision...
- zaarn 8y agoBut it doesn't, it goes into the EU budget.
- black_puppydog 8y agoexactly. so it sounds reasonable to me. what are debating again? :P
- MaMyT 8y agoIs that how we are planning on fixing the EU budget?
- nyuszika7h 8y agoThe original title says €1.5bn.
- eggy 8y agoI don't know, I see the super state that the EU wants to become as scary as the super tech company people fear in Google. Also, making it hard to change browsers is not the same as prohibiting changing browsers. Some things are hard to change in Linux too, but I am sure for different reasons that are the result of how they pile on top of each other. The EU could use a cash infusion though given its current economic state.
- askmike 8y ago> Some things are hard to change in Linux too, but I am sure for different reasons that are the result of how they pile on top of each other. The problem isn't technical debt. It would be a company making billions on something that's "hard to change", and than brush it off as technical debt ;)
- klmr 8y agoFor starters, this fine isn’t about browsers, it’s about AdSense. Apart from that, we can discuss the pros and cons of multinational treaty cooperations until we’re blue in the face but at the very least the EU in principle follows a democratic postulate, meaning that its citizens have decision power. Google is fundamentally unaccountable to anybody but its largest shareholders. If you fear democratically steered treaty unions more than unaccountable multinational mega-corporations, you’re not paying attention.
- eggy 8y agoI am not as optimistic on the EU as you are. Reading 1984, before 1984, and growing up during the Cold War, definitely has shaped my thoughts on some of this, especially a single state or one-world government. A pan-European state, with one flag, it's own anthem, and the desire for a single army doesn't pass my sniff test of just being a multinational treaty cooperation, or a "democratically steered treaty union" as you write above. It points toward a bigger thing in action of that which some of its proponents oppose in their ideals. Trotsky pushed for a communist, soviet united states of Europe in 1923. As far as AdSense goes, after reading the article a second time, I am not convinced of it being a forced monopoly (Apple iPhones and other options), and I see the fine as protectionist and not under antitrust violation. I see the same protectionism here in the US too. I gave up an iPhone for an Android phone, because I think it gives me more choice to install what I want, to hack away at it, in a way that feels more free to me than when I had an iPhone (back in 2016, maybe it has changed?).
- known 8y agoHow does Google Legal Team allow such restrictive clauses in their contracts? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
- nilsocket 8y agoOne makes the law and then punish if somebody doesn't follow it. It seems EU is digging laws to earn money from American companies. It's very weird when EU punishes someone by digging up their past and without looking into oneself of the horrible atrocities one have done. While in this case, it seems to make sense to say we aren't responsible for what's done in past.
- icebraining 8y ago> It's very weird when EU punishes someone by digging up their past and without looking into oneself of the horrible atrocities one have done. What does this mean? Who is "one" here?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- nilsocket 8y agoWhat I mean to say is, EU is looking at tech giants past and fining billions. But if one looks at the European countries history, they have mostly looted from various other countries. It's seems completely fine for them to look up all the bad practices done by google.(where no human life is lost) One should also look at what their countries have done in past and pay the affected countries for their wrong doing. But in these case they seem to say we aren't responsible for what our ancestors have done. What I mean is, It's fine if google have done something wrong in the past. Layout the rules now, if they cross it, then fine them. Now, I think this is exploiting power, just because they can.
- aurebox 8y agoI'm really an amateur on this kind of topic but I was wondering: Is there a way the fine grows as Google does not cooperate with EU rules?
- hopler 8y agoEU has fined Google repeatedly and likely will continue to do so.
- icebraining 8y agoYes, they can impose larger fines if Google doesn't cooperate, but they have; the behavior in question stopped in 2016.
- sabujp 8y agocost of doing business in EU when you're big
- Hamuko 8y agoThe cost of engaging in anti-competitive behaviour in the EU.
- dodobirdlord 8y agoAs far as I can tell, being a large successful technology company is anti-competitive behavior in the EU. This fine, and the multi-billion dollar fine last year, and the multi-billion dollar fine the year before that all are apparently for violations from 2008-2016, before Google had wised up to the fact that the EU was going to get out of fines what it couldn't get out of taxes. There will be another multi-billion dollar fine next year. There will be another multi-billion dollar fine the year after that. Technology companies are sufficiently dependent on economies of scale that the commission will never run out of "anti-competitive practices" to fine them for and it will never be the right financial move to fracture enough to escape the commission's gaze. The whole Irish tax haven thing was crafty, but the EU has figured out how to get its slice of the pie.
- zaroth 8y agoThis is not for AdSense on Google.com, this is for third-party sites with a search feature showing search ads to their own customers. A third-party site who wants to show ads in their own search results could partner with Google to include AdSense ads in their own results. The Google contract originally required exclusivity, and then was changed to require Google ads to be more prominent. In the context of the market for third-party sites running search ads, the $1.5 billion fine seems extremely high. On the one hand, it’s not immediately obvious to take a conglomorate’s total worldwide revenue into account to value a fine for a specific market, versus considering only the revenue for that market. However in this case Google is squeezing out companies like Yahoo and Bing from increasing their own ad inventory in the few ways that are available to them, aside from increasing their own organic search traffic. So this is where the anti-competitive behavior comes in, and perhaps why the fine is so massive. I can’t imagine keyword search on third-party sites is responsible for a significant share of overall AdSense revenue, I wonder if it’s even a single digit percentage of their overall ad inventory?
- yeahitslikethat 8y agoAs long as the punishment for the crime is less than the crime itself, crime will perpetuate. If you steal 1.000,00€ from a bank, they don't fine you 1€. No. They send you to jail for years.
- sosodev 8y agoExactly. Why should corporations get off easy when we don't?
- aeorgnoieang 8y agoWhy shouldn't we all get off easy (or easier)?
- ocdtrekkie 8y agoBecause then, like corporations do, we won't correct our behavior, we'll just accept the punishment as an occasional cost.
- bitxbit 8y agoThey’re going to fine Facebook into oblivion.
- yohann305 8y agoOk now is the EU going to take the money off the fine and redistribute it to companies that loss from this anti-competition? (Yahoo, and Bing among others) ...Off course not ! In some way, it’s a kind of racketeering
- indronilbanerji 8y agoExcellent news! I'm quite delighted. Stringent punishment should be imposed on those thugs systematically looting data of uninitiated usrs.
- PrimeDirective 8y agojust wondering, what's up with the previous two fines? did Google pay? is it still in courts?
- zavi 8y agoThey pay immediately then dispute in court.
- Veelox 8y agoJust trying to get the facts straight. Google provided the ability to search your site. They also allowed you to show ads/make money from these searches. If you wanted to use this, you had to only show Google ads. I don't understand how that is illegal.
- utopcell 8y agoEventually they are going to fine Google for showing only Google ads on Google's search page.
- VikingCoder 8y agoThat kind of already happened: https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/27/google-fined-e2-42bn-for-eu-antitrust-violations-over-shopping-searches/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/27/google-fined-e2-42bn-for-e...
- dmitriid 8y agoAs in: didn't happen, and Google was fined correctly: "Evidence shows that even the most highly ranked rival service appears on average only on page four of Google’s search results, and others appear even further down. Google’s own comparison shopping service is not subject to Google’s generic search algorithms, including such demotions."
- utopcell 8y agoI can't wait to walk into a Walmart and see poster ads for Best Buy near its entrance. Why is Walmart abusing its dominance as a retailer ? (This line of reasoning actually makes sense to some people.)
- faceplanted 8y agoI'm not sure if you're saying that the fine makes sense or you're being sarcastic and saying it doesn't.
- iamgopal 8y agoFine is the new taxes.
- jquery 8y agoBased on the cadence and size of these fines for the given offenses, they seem like backdoor taxes, not fines. They're hitting Google's global revenue over comparatively minor offenses, seemingly just enough to keep Google around as a golden goose to extract more wealth out of but not drive them away completely like China.
- bb101 8y agoDid anyone play Dune II back in the day? In a world where North America is Atreides, Russia being Harkonnen, the EU is conveniently taking the place of House Ordos (ambitious vying by disparate powers).
- ChuckMcM 8y agoThis will be a boon to sites who have lost a lot of their revenue from their "custom search" function on their own website. As described in the article, Google has been squeezing these sites in order to keep more of the advertising revenue for themselves. (You can see it in their results by looking at how the ratio of money made on Google sites versus third party sites has been consistently shifting into the Google side of the pie) Now I wonder if the EU will take on search engine front ends like startpage.com or duckduckgo who use Google results. Will they be allowed to run their own ad network alongside the Google results? If so that would make them a lot more viable.
- zavi 8y agoNothing will happen to those other sites because for this particular case Google has already changed its practice after the EU filed an objection in 2016. This fine is retroactive to cover the damages made during the 10 years of investigation. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-latest-eu-fine-on-alphabets-google-5-things-to-know-2019-03-20 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-latest-eu-fine-on-alph...
- ChuckMcM 8y agoUnderstand that there are two "kinds" of custom search. One, which is discussed in the BBC article is "AdSense for Search" which is and advertising program you could engage when you put a Google search box on your web site. The other kind, which is not discussed here, is where you have a web front end like startpage.com or duckduckgo.com which is making an API call to a search index in response to your query. In the US, the two english language indexes with decent precision and recall are provided by Google and Bing[1]. One of Google's big partners there is Infospace which uses Google results in many of their properties. That said, when you use Google results in your search "engine" web page, you are bound by a different contract than the AdSense contract. And, like the AdSense contract, it is (or at least was) pretty restrictive on what sort of advertising you could do around Google's results. [1] Bing either directly or through Yahoo!'s BOSS API if that is still a thing.
- tareqak 8y agoInvestor reaction: Google was slapped with another huge EU fine — and investors didn’t bat an eye [0] [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/20/google-eu-fine-investors-not-worried.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/20/google-eu-fine-investors-not...
- Kenji 8y agoWhen will people realize that these fines are a ponzi scheme and a power grab of the EU? What has the EU done for me? Nothing. What has Google done for me? I watch Youtube, browse in Chrome, run Android, use the Playstore, program Go... The list goes on and on. If anything, the EU should pay money to Google because Google gets shit done and the EU doesn't.
- gerash 8y agoApart from how absurd the justifications and the amount of these billion dollar fines are, who would be the recipient of this fine if paid?