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To be clear, while the fines might make operating in the EU unprofitable, they could just...follow EU regulations...and remain profitable, albeit at a likely lo

To be clear, while the fines might make operating in the EU unprofitable, they could just...follow EU regulations...and remain profitable, albeit at a likely lower margin

antonymy 4y ago
That's probably the goal, but Google is probably going to have anxiety about getting fined again if their compliance is not enough. Except in this case, the fines are so steep that it'd be very hard to over-spend on compliance. But it's just a race to the bottom in any case, Google only stands to make less and less money in the EU from now on.
- dangjc 4y ago
  It’s not walking on egg shells. It’s very clear directions to avoid anti competitive behavior. Maybe it’s harder without a moral compass telling them to not be evil.
ranman 4y ago
EU regulations + individual country restrictions are written in a way that's allergic to running a profitable business (with a few notable exceptions).
- DandyDev 4y ago
  That seems like hyperbole to me. Did you do concrete research/calculations to prove that for example Google in this case would not be able to turn a profit in the EU when they'd comply to regulations?
crazygringo 4y ago
To be fair, it's often very unclear how regulations relating to markets apply. Which is why lawsuits around them often get reversed on appeal, re-reversed on another appeal, and so on. It's often very open to interpretation what constitutes a market, what constitutes bundling, what constitutes dominance, what constitutes monopoly, what even constitutes a product. There's neither such a thing as clear-cut definitions, nor even common sense (since different people's common sense can be diametrically opposed). It's things as basic as: is a Sony Walkman with headphones one product or two? What's the difference between Sony requiring you to buy headphones together with the tape player, or Android requiring Google to be the default search? Is "portable cassette player with headphones" a single market, or are "portable cassette players" and "headphones" separate markets? There's no such thing as "just follow EU regulations". Google and other observers can genuinely believe it's following them, while a specific EU court and yet other observers can genuinely believe it's breaking them.
- ephbit 4y ago
  > What's the difference between Sony requiring you to buy headphones together with the tape player, or Android requiring Google to be the default search? Sony and headphones together with tape player ... there's a synergy there, when they can sell them together, it's a small one though. (Selling two pieces of hardware together generates more turnover with one transaction.) With Android requiring Google to be the default search ... in comparison to the headphones there's a huge synergy here, I'd say. Collecting data (via non search software on the Android phone) and adding to it more data from search, makes all data more valuable in a very non-linear way. With the tape player I'd say it's more linear. So for me, the search data is a quite obvious non-neutrality issue.
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    I just meant it as a rhetorical question... just to point out that what is obvious for one person, the opposite is obvious for another. And so just "following regulations" doesn't always necessarily have any kind of objective way to do it -- as evidenced by courts often disagreeing with each other in specific situations.
    - ephbit 4y ago
      I think I understood what you were after, giving an example, that is. When I read the example though, I immediately thought it didn't quite ring true. So I tried to explain to myself why and came up with what I wrote. Even though there are obviously many examples one could give, where it'd indeed be difficult to see a difference, I didn't want to let this specific example go unchallenged. Why? Because it is so close to the actual topic (Google).
- makomk 4y ago
  Also, prior to Google throwing vast sums of money at phone companies, Bing was paying off many EU mobile phone providers to install Bing as the default search engine on all their Android-based devices and lock users out from changing it to anything else. Since those companies were government-enforced oligipolies, this meant ordinary users effectively couldn't get devices that sent their searches to Google or anyone other than Bing in many countries unless they went off-piste and bought their own device online from someone other than their mobile provider (which doesn't work a lot of the time these days with 4G calling). This could well end up substantially reducing consumer choice in a way that directly hurts Google. In fact, an astounding chunk of the Google anti-trust actions from the EU seem aimed at giving Bing unearned advantages...

To be clear, while the fines might make operating in the EU unprofitable, they could just...follow EU regulations...and remain profitable, albeit at a likely lower margin

antonymy 4y ago

That's probably the goal, but Google is probably going to have anxiety about getting fined again if their compliance is not enough. Except in this case, the fines are so steep that it'd be very hard to over-spend on compliance. But it's just a race to the bottom in any case, Google only stands to make less and less money in the EU from now on.

dangjc 4y ago
It’s not walking on egg shells. It’s very clear directions to avoid anti competitive behavior. Maybe it’s harder without a moral compass telling them to not be evil.

ranman 4y ago

EU regulations + individual country restrictions are written in a way that's allergic to running a profitable business (with a few notable exceptions).

DandyDev 4y ago
That seems like hyperbole to me. Did you do concrete research/calculations to prove that for example Google in this case would not be able to turn a profit in the EU when they'd comply to regulations?

crazygringo 4y ago

To be fair, it's often very unclear how regulations relating to markets apply. Which is why lawsuits around them often get reversed on appeal, re-reversed on another appeal, and so on. It's often very open to interpretation what constitutes a market, what constitutes bundling, what constitutes dominance, what constitutes monopoly, what even constitutes a product. There's neither such a thing as clear-cut definitions, nor even common sense (since different people's common sense can be diametrically opposed). It's things as basic as: is a Sony Walkman with headphones one product or two? What's the difference between Sony requiring you to buy headphones together with the tape player, or Android requiring Google to be the default search? Is "portable cassette player with headphones" a single market, or are "portable cassette players" and "headphones" separate markets? There's no such thing as "just follow EU regulations". Google and other observers can genuinely believe it's following them, while a specific EU court and yet other observers can genuinely believe it's breaking them.

ephbit 4y ago
> What's the difference between Sony requiring you to buy headphones together with the tape player, or Android requiring Google to be the default search? Sony and headphones together with tape player ... there's a synergy there, when they can sell them together, it's a small one though. (Selling two pieces of hardware together generates more turnover with one transaction.) With Android requiring Google to be the default search ... in comparison to the headphones there's a huge synergy here, I'd say. Collecting data (via non search software on the Android phone) and adding to it more data from search, makes all data more valuable in a very non-linear way. With the tape player I'd say it's more linear. So for me, the search data is a quite obvious non-neutrality issue.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  I just meant it as a rhetorical question... just to point out that what is obvious for one person, the opposite is obvious for another. And so just "following regulations" doesn't always necessarily have any kind of objective way to do it -- as evidenced by courts often disagreeing with each other in specific situations.
  - ephbit 4y ago
    I think I understood what you were after, giving an example, that is. When I read the example though, I immediately thought it didn't quite ring true. So I tried to explain to myself why and came up with what I wrote. Even though there are obviously many examples one could give, where it'd indeed be difficult to see a difference, I didn't want to let this specific example go unchallenged. Why? Because it is so close to the actual topic (Google).
makomk 4y ago
Also, prior to Google throwing vast sums of money at phone companies, Bing was paying off many EU mobile phone providers to install Bing as the default search engine on all their Android-based devices and lock users out from changing it to anything else. Since those companies were government-enforced oligipolies, this meant ordinary users effectively couldn't get devices that sent their searches to Google or anyone other than Bing in many countries unless they went off-piste and bought their own device online from someone other than their mobile provider (which doesn't work a lot of the time these days with 4G calling). This could well end up substantially reducing consumer choice in a way that directly hurts Google. In fact, an astounding chunk of the Google anti-trust actions from the EU seem aimed at giving Bing unearned advantages...