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My understanding (based only on investor filings, I left Google long before GDPR was drafted) is that Google's plan is basically just to set aside several billi

My understanding (based only on investor filings, I left Google long before GDPR was drafted) is that Google's plan is basically just to set aside several billion dollars every quarter for GDPR fines and pay them as a cost of doing business. Many of Google's critical product features wouldn't work without the "internal data free-for-all". If EU regulators really make a stink about it (rather than just setting fines that can be covered by profit) they'd likely just pull out of the EU.

saagarjha 7y ago
Can Google afford your pull out of the EU? How about California, which seems to be following suit?
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  Personal prediction: California will continue to follow the GDPR up until the point it threatens Google's core business, at which point someone will pull the legislature and the governor aside and have a frank conversation about the state GDP tradeoffs of constraining the R&D of their major technical companies.
- nostrademons 7y ago
  EU, sure. They make about ~$50B of a total $161B in annual revenue from Europe. It'd hurt their stock price - at least temporarily - but there's nothing fundamental about the service they're offering worldwide that'd disappear if they no longer did business in Europe. They'd treat it as a simple economic decision: when the cost of operating in Europe exceeds the revenue generated from it, it's time to pull out of Europe. I also suspect that Project Dragonfly (Google's re-entry into China) might've been partially to blunt the effect of a European exit - Europe hasn't really liked Google since about 2010, and the regulatory climate keeps getting worse for them, so at some point it'll become not worth it for them to continue. They already pulled Google News out of several European countries when regulations made it too much trouble to continue offering the service, and then reinstated it when the regulations were rescinded because local publishers realized how much traffic they'd lose if Google News no longer featured their articles. California is trickier because many key employees work at their Mountain View, San Francisco, and Santa Monica offices. I suspect that that's changing - they've been expanding rapidly in offices in other locations, perhaps as insurance against this (and the rising cost of living in California), and there's probably less of a concept of a "key employee" now that the main services are written, not really innovating, and mostly in maintenance mode.

saagarjha 7y ago

Can Google afford your pull out of the EU? How about California, which seems to be following suit?

shadowgovt 7y ago
Personal prediction: California will continue to follow the GDPR up until the point it threatens Google's core business, at which point someone will pull the legislature and the governor aside and have a frank conversation about the state GDP tradeoffs of constraining the R&D of their major technical companies.
nostrademons 7y ago
EU, sure. They make about ~$50B of a total $161B in annual revenue from Europe. It'd hurt their stock price - at least temporarily - but there's nothing fundamental about the service they're offering worldwide that'd disappear if they no longer did business in Europe. They'd treat it as a simple economic decision: when the cost of operating in Europe exceeds the revenue generated from it, it's time to pull out of Europe. I also suspect that Project Dragonfly (Google's re-entry into China) might've been partially to blunt the effect of a European exit - Europe hasn't really liked Google since about 2010, and the regulatory climate keeps getting worse for them, so at some point it'll become not worth it for them to continue. They already pulled Google News out of several European countries when regulations made it too much trouble to continue offering the service, and then reinstated it when the regulations were rescinded because local publishers realized how much traffic they'd lose if Google News no longer featured their articles. California is trickier because many key employees work at their Mountain View, San Francisco, and Santa Monica offices. I suspect that that's changing - they've been expanding rapidly in offices in other locations, perhaps as insurance against this (and the rising cost of living in California), and there's probably less of a concept of a "key employee" now that the main services are written, not really innovating, and mostly in maintenance mode.