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Anyone running a business knows that fines at ~day's revenue of the business are at best nuisance (this fine represents ~1.2 days of Google revenue). Google sho

Anyone running a business knows that fines at ~day's revenue of the business are at best nuisance (this fine represents ~1.2 days of Google revenue). Google should be able to afford order of magnitude large fines if it helps them buy time and find a "way" to relieve the pressure from news orgs of one country and come up with a more comprehensive answer to this 'threat' in general. Giving the French what they want would add to the streak of precedents that are much more dangerous for Google's bottom line. Imagine if Google needed to have a revenue share agreement with every website it uses snippets from, anywhere in the world, proportional to appearances/clicks in results? This could be possible because there is nothing special in the laws about news sites as such, they are just more organized in their demands. This would be search 2.0, sustainable for the web, but would 'bad' for the search giant as we know it today.

jeltz 5y ago
Sure, but fines stops Google from ignoring the court ruling forever because if they do France will keep finding them umäntil they comply which will cost more than it is worth. Yes, it is often a good deal to intentionally risk fines to delay but not even Google can afford doing it forever.
- freediver 5y ago
  $500M fine every few months? Google can definitely afford doing it forever. It probably won't and my argument is they were just buying time to come up a with a strong answer to this, which is IMO a serious threat to their business.
ekianjo 5y ago
Revenue is not profit...
- freediver 5y ago
  For high margin tech businesses it almost is. Google does not need 150,000 people to operate search&ads. There is a lever it can pull, but doing so would turn it into a different kind of business. Thiel has a great line for this phenomena: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q26XIKtwXQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q26XIKtwXQ
  - ekianjo 5y ago
    Google does far more than search and ads.
    - freediver 5y ago
      But search and ads are 80%+ of its revenue.
dahfizz 5y ago
> this fine represents ~1.2 days of Google revenue Of their _global_ revenue. France is not a particularly large country. I could definitely see it being economical for Google to stop operating in France, or to blacklist all these french publishers.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Not operating in France is a threat to global operations because it allows serious runway to competitors.
- Marsymars 5y ago
  > France is not a particularly large country. I get where you're coming from, but by that metric, there are only two large countries. (USA and China) After the top two, France is effectively tied for the third-largest economy in the world (with the UK and India) and is >50% of the size of the top non-USA/China economy (Japan).
zaroth 5y ago
This is a truly massive fine by any measure. First of all you’re looking at global revenue and not just France, which can’t be more than 10%. Second you’re looking at revenue from all sources, and here we’re taking about links just to news sites, which again can’t be more than 10%. So two orders of magnitude at least is $181 billion -> $1.81 billion. A $500 million fine is likely on the order of 1/3rd of the total annual revenue generated in that market.
- freediver 5y ago
  It is massive compared to Google's revenue in France, but Google can pay for the fine using its global revenue. Imagine if you ran 100 lemonode stands and one of them gets fined 1/3rd of its revenue. So you basically got fined 1/300th of your total revenue. It is a blip. >Second you’re looking at revenue from all sources, and here we’re taking about links just to news sites Although I do not think it is relevant for my point, it is worth saying that Google was not fined for "links to news sites", it was fined for failing to comply with a regulatory order to enter negotiations withs news orgs and come to an agreement within three months (paraphrasing). Basically it is being schooled by French authorities in a display of power (curiously, France as a country is 'only' 10x more powerful than Google, economically speaking). What IMO is massive about this though, are the potential future implications for Google at its scale, if this becomes a trend and other types of websites 'unionize' around the 'snippet attribution' or a similar idea.
Jyaif 5y ago
> this fine represents ~1.2 days of Google revenue Why do people keep mentioning revenue as if it was some sort of useful measurement? When paying fines net profit is what matters.

jeltz 5y ago

Sure, but fines stops Google from ignoring the court ruling forever because if they do France will keep finding them umäntil they comply which will cost more than it is worth. Yes, it is often a good deal to intentionally risk fines to delay but not even Google can afford doing it forever.

freediver 5y ago
$500M fine every few months? Google can definitely afford doing it forever. It probably won't and my argument is they were just buying time to come up a with a strong answer to this, which is IMO a serious threat to their business.

ekianjo 5y ago

Revenue is not profit...

freediver 5y ago
For high margin tech businesses it almost is. Google does not need 150,000 people to operate search&ads. There is a lever it can pull, but doing so would turn it into a different kind of business. Thiel has a great line for this phenomena: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q26XIKtwXQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q26XIKtwXQ
- ekianjo 5y ago
  Google does far more than search and ads.
  - freediver 5y ago
    But search and ads are 80%+ of its revenue.

dahfizz 5y ago

> this fine represents ~1.2 days of Google revenue Of their _global_ revenue. France is not a particularly large country. I could definitely see it being economical for Google to stop operating in France, or to blacklist all these french publishers.

sudosysgen 5y ago
Not operating in France is a threat to global operations because it allows serious runway to competitors.
Marsymars 5y ago
> France is not a particularly large country. I get where you're coming from, but by that metric, there are only two large countries. (USA and China) After the top two, France is effectively tied for the third-largest economy in the world (with the UK and India) and is >50% of the size of the top non-USA/China economy (Japan).

zaroth 5y ago

This is a truly massive fine by any measure. First of all you’re looking at global revenue and not just France, which can’t be more than 10%. Second you’re looking at revenue from all sources, and here we’re taking about links just to news sites, which again can’t be more than 10%. So two orders of magnitude at least is $181 billion -> $1.81 billion. A $500 million fine is likely on the order of 1/3rd of the total annual revenue generated in that market.

freediver 5y ago
It is massive compared to Google's revenue in France, but Google can pay for the fine using its global revenue. Imagine if you ran 100 lemonode stands and one of them gets fined 1/3rd of its revenue. So you basically got fined 1/300th of your total revenue. It is a blip. >Second you’re looking at revenue from all sources, and here we’re taking about links just to news sites Although I do not think it is relevant for my point, it is worth saying that Google was not fined for "links to news sites", it was fined for failing to comply with a regulatory order to enter negotiations withs news orgs and come to an agreement within three months (paraphrasing). Basically it is being schooled by French authorities in a display of power (curiously, France as a country is 'only' 10x more powerful than Google, economically speaking). What IMO is massive about this though, are the potential future implications for Google at its scale, if this becomes a trend and other types of websites 'unionize' around the 'snippet attribution' or a similar idea.

Jyaif 5y ago

> this fine represents ~1.2 days of Google revenue Why do people keep mentioning revenue as if it was some sort of useful measurement? When paying fines net profit is what matters.