> Why can't the US simply allow the corporations to face the consequences of their actions? They can and usually do. I don't think you'll see any US government

> Why can't the US simply allow the corporations to face the consequences of their actions? They can and usually do. I don't think you'll see any US government action over this $2.8b fine. If the EU decided to try to fine Google out of existence, the US government would be displeased, as that is a direct attack on US interests (it hurts US GDP, tax revenue, employment rate, and US tech dominance), and can and would take action, whether to prevent the fine from happening, to prevent Google from going out of business, or in retribution to prevent the EU from doing anything similar in the future. > They're free to either pay or get out of the country that's imposing the fine. Yes, and the EU isn't dumb enough to fine Google enough that would make them consider pulling out of the EU, as that would do pretty significant damage to the EU economy and the willingness of foreign companies to do business in the EU. > Why does Google get to exploit foreign citizens and violate their rights while under the protection of the US government? The US government doesn't really care whether Google exploits foreign citizens or violates their rights, as the US government has no obligations to protect foreign citizens and their rights, and does plenty of exploitation and violation of its own to foreign citizens. As long as Google is a net benefit for US citizens and the US government, the US government has incentives to protect Google from foreign governments. None of this is unique to the US or Google, you could replace any country and major corporation and this all still holds true. > Huge fines are the only thing that will work. Huge fines are politically impossible, they can't work at all. > Corporations these days are richer than nations and these little 2 billion dollar fines do nothing. I don't think so, on either count. The richest corporations are richer than the poorest nations, but that's been true for a long time. The richest corporations are still an order of magnitude smaller than the richest countries, though. And a $2b fine doesn't do nothing, it may do less than you want, but it's still a lot of money that the corporation no longer has and would rather have not paid.