8 ms·

Going to pre-empt the comments that always pop up in these topics saying "Google/Meta/Apple will just leave the EU at this rate": Google still has around $20 bi

by jjani 1y ago

Going to pre-empt the comments that always pop up in these topics saying "Google/Meta/Apple will just leave the EU at this rate": Google still has around $20 billion yearly reasons to remain active in the EU. Talking Europe yearly net profit here, post-fine. No, they're not going to say "screw this fine, you can take your $20 billion per year, we're leaving!". The second that happens, shareholders will have Sundar's access revoked within the hour. There is a number of countries where Google has to deal with large levels of protectionist barriers (not the EU, these fines aren't that) and they still operate there. Korea is just one example. Because there's still a lot of money to be made. China isn't a counterexample: Google stopped operating search in China because at that point there was not a lot of money to be made for them in search there.

jaredklewis 1y ago
I agree with everything you’ve said, but just would also point out that in addition to the fine, it is unclear how changing its practices is going to decrease existing (ill gotten) ad revenues going forward. Presumably these changes will hurt revenue or google would already be following them.
nonethewiser 1y ago
[flagged]
- devilkin 1y ago
  Oh, you mean, standing up against full monopolies?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- perching_aix 1y ago
  The only good thing about blatantly uncharitable comments like this is that at least one can discard them without remorse.
  - nonethewiser 1y ago
    My comment was not uncharitable. I edited to add more context.
    - perching_aix 1y ago
      The added context being your uncharitable opinion?
      - nonethewiser 1y ago
        I don't really know what you mean by this
        perching_aix 1y ago
        > I edited to add more context. Either this was also just edited in or I misread, but what I originally replied to was "I just added more context". Your original comment above is no longer visible as it's been flagged. I don't see your edit, and no one else does either.
        nonethewiser 1y ago
        Thanks for the info
- tietjens 1y ago
  Legal jurisdiction of dozens of countries is extortion to you, huh?
  - nonethewiser 1y ago
    Legal jurisdiction of dozens of countries is not extortion
bee_rider 1y ago
I love that you got one response calling it extortion, and another worrying that it might not have recovered all the money from the abusive practices. The EU is threading the needle deftly here, I guess.
- nonethewiser 1y ago
  Im not necessarily saying its extortion. Im saying his observation is why the EU could extort Google for a lot more than $3B. My wording was unclear so I tried editing my original comment but apparently it was removed. Why forfeit $20B in revenue in exchange for NOT having to pay $3B? I think that's an astute observation by the original commenter.
  - bee_rider 1y ago
    Sorry for the incorrect read I guess. Hopefully it will be restored and I’ll get a chance to re-read it (fwiw I wish it hadn’t been flagged).
    - nonethewiser 1y ago
      I think I've summarized it well enough. I would copy/paste it for clarity but I will avoid that, as I'm not trying to give the impression of evading content moderation. EDIT: FWIW I think your observation that the EU is threading a needle stands. It's a controversial topic that people are very passionate about.
  - hopelite 1y ago
    Here's a better option that Google will more likely follow; simply build the fines into operation costs and bill that to EU customers or maybe all Google customers looking to serve ads in the EU. I am not sure why but otherwise seemingly intelligent people seem to be incapable of internalizing that any cost, expense, or fine levied against any corporate entity will always, with 100% (not any other percentage) be rolled into prices. The minor headache of it lowering returns will also be offset and will not really make a difference to any meaningful degree. Most likely Google, just like other corporations that are exposed to this kind of risk, will have set aside a "war chest" they have been building up over prior years, which further would defray any real impact. Then of course there is the fact that these fines are rarely ever the actual amount that will be paid in the end, and most of the time it can be distributed over time. What people should really take away from this is that in the end it really is kind of an extortion racket by the EU, but not of Google, but rather of the advertising companies the end consumers who end up paying from he higher priced ads through product prices, and possibly the general Google customer base. This would really only be an issue that materially impacted Google if there were some kind of real competition in the space, which there is not really. What the EU could possibly do that would have a notable impact is setting industry standards to, e.g., a universal ad format that is ad broker agnostic, e.g., your app, site, service, etc could just serve up ads from all kinds of places, a kind of free market of ads not dominated by Google. But even with that, with Google's advancement in AI generated content, they will likely also dominate the ad generation market soon. The oddest thing is that the EU and Europe in general has all but floundered in many ways regarding the generation of a competitive technology industry. But that's a whole different topic.
PhantomHour 1y ago
The entire idea of "Oh they'll leave" is ridiculous, an empty threat from billionaires who are afraid of regulation. The EU has 450M (+80M for UK & similar non-eu countries that are likely to follow the EU on such regulations) population to the US' 350M. The moment the likes of Google, or Meta, or Microsoft, or whomever else leave the EU, they immediately create a market gap. A market gap that will then in short order be filled with a European company that, because of the population sizes, has a notable comparative advantage to the US tech company. + As much as HN's readership loathes to admit it, regulations like this are "Good, Actually". Google's monopolist practices are bad for both advertisers and services showing ads. Any would-be competitor that arises from Google leaving the market would, by virtue of being forced by law to not be so shitty, be the better option. (And yes, this does also apply to pretty much all of the other big tech regulations as well.) Like, c'mon. "Monopolies bad" is capitalism 101. Even the US' regulators thought Google was going too far.
- linotype 1y ago
  Nm
  - immibis 1y ago
    More importantly though, why haven't they? A lot of it is a because the US brands are more recognizable and cheaper (due to dumping) and grow faster (due to the USA's VC glut). IIRC a company like AirBNB was started in Europe, and was slowly growing, and couldn't get investment because "who would want this?" and then AirBNB was created, and then arrived in Europe, and they still couldn't get investment because "who wants a ripoff clone of AirBNB?"
    - nonethewiser 1y ago
      What do you mean by "dumping?" It sounds like you're just talking about VC.
      - PhantomHour 1y ago
        "Dumping" in the context of international trade; Predatory pricing. The standard model for tech firms has been to run at enormous losses to push competition into bankruptcy or steal their users through subsidized service. No European social media company could compete with e.g. Twitter, running at a loss for TWELVE years. In more recent years, it's things like Uber. Subsidizing ride costs to crush existing taxi services & European taxi startups. This is all, ostensibly, illegal under international law. You can't do it for cars or commodity goods. It's just not been enforced on the tech industry.
pendenthistory 1y ago
No, they will not leave the EU because the EU is not reading the room right now. You think Trump will do nothing to protect FAANG? To be honest, despite being European, I'm surprised the US has let itself be pushed around for so long. I don't say I agree with it, it's just realpolitik.
- vkou 1y ago
  Odds aren't terrible that Trump will have a fatal stroke before his term is up, the EU will outlive him, and can't and shouldn't tie its sovereign domestic policy and enforcement to cross-Atlantic chain-yanking that changes direction from week to week. No matter what anyone does, he just moves the goal posts. Let him keep his ball.
  - dmbche 1y ago
    You never know they might have kept Cheney's heart surgeon somewhere to keep patching him up
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- victorbjorklund 1y ago
  What is he going to do? Nuke Paris?
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    [flagged]
- bee_rider 1y ago
  It is hard to understand what Trump will do… it is hard to talk about this without going on some US politics tangent, which I think is not appreciated on this site. But he isn’t particularly affiliated with FAANG really. He has some startup guys in his orbit, but they aren’t FAANG. And he’s, uh… very motivated by what others have to offer him… so FAANG clearly has some leverage there, but I don’t think it is necessarily a sure thing they’ll work something out.
29athrowaway 1y ago
It is not only revenue, it is mining data, feeding it into Gemini and selling it back to people in the form of ML models.
- immibis 1y ago
  If you can prove Google did this, the GDPR fines will make them bankrupt. Corporations are rightfully terrified of breaking GDPR.
  - troupo 1y ago
    GDPR hasn't been really enforced. I don't think anyone is scared of GDPR anymore.
    - fsflover 1y ago
      https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ https://www.enforcementtracker.com/
      - troupo 1y ago
        Yup. Small fish, tiny fines. The actual wide spread abuse? Nope
        account42 1y ago
        Unfortunately true. Real enforcement would have companies make sure they stay on the legal side instead of trying to work around the rules.
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      Have I got news for you... I'm aware of a single record case that cost the perp 350K. You really don't want to get zapped with the maximum fines based on wilful transgressions on large numbers of people. edit: I misremembered, it was 100K higher.
ivanjermakov 1y ago
I think Google leaving EU will result in more good than harm by shaping a better landscape for innovation and competition.
- Xenoamorphous 1y ago
  As an European, I wish you were right, but I’m afraid you aren’t. The EU would use public funding to build some sort of Google alternative and it would take ages, would be mediocre and most money would go to waste. Instead of incentivising entrepreneurship, which is what they probably should do. We live very well in the EU. We don’t have to have millions in savings in order to retire. Strong worker protection. Plenty of time off. Low crime rates. Most people fantasise with becoming rich, but as in, “I had a rich aunt that I didn’t even meet in my life and I was the sole heir” or “I won the lottery”, not as in “I grinded for the best 10 years of my life working 100 hours per week before I sold my company” that seems more prevalent in the US. Ordinary people here are super happy if they can buy a small place to live (not a humongous house) even if it takes 25 years to pay it in full, then finish work at 5 and take their kids to the park and have dinner at some restaurant on Saturday. OTOH: I think the current US administration is the best think that could happen to the EU, a big wake up call. Suddenly there’s money to invest in Defense and that kind of thing. Also, hopefully LLMs will diminish Google’s importance, and as long as there’s competitive models not from the US (Mistral, DeepSeek) we might be fine. But Google holds all the cards (data). With stuff like the Harvard animosity they might even stop attracting all the foreign talent. Apple? There’s Samsung for phones at least. Amazon? They’ve become a Temu/Aliexpress. Facebook… huge win if they stopped doing business in Europe. MS? This is the year of Linux in desktop? The Cloud is one of those things where the EU could build something competitive/alternative just with public funding. All running on Linux, of course.
  - holoduke 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - Xenoamorphous 1y ago
      Wish you could know what they (media) tell us about the US over here…
outside2344 1y ago
I think it is more likely that Trump point blank tells them they aren't allowed to pay this and that the EU isn't allowed to fine them any longer.
- ajsnigrutin 1y ago
  And ursula will brag how she got a deal with trump, where google doesn't get fined. ...like with the tarrifs, where US got everything they wanted and EU got nothing.
- jjani 1y ago
  I don't think I expressed anything about their likelihood of payment - just that they won't stop doing business in the EU. I think your scenario is a real possibility, but ironically one that would cost the US a lot more than it gains. It's really playing with fire, running the risk of even just 1% of EU businesses and consumers opting for EU services over US ones. And just that 1% represents far more than all of the yearly fines to Google/Meta/Apple combined.
rs186 1y ago
> Google stopped operating search in China because at that point there was not a lot of money to be made for them in search there. Source? Back in 2010 when Google left, their search market share was close to 30%. It's hard to think there was no money to be made. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China
- jjani 1y ago
  China is a special case. As the government has effectively total control, even having 30% market share as Google doesn't mean it's a profitable venture, or that the government hasn't said that it will let it remain one - and there's really no way that it would've given that it's relatively easily replaceable critical infrastructure. Search engines aren't as hard as Googlers like to believe, it was substituted by Baidu succesfully. Think about it - which B2C non-Chinese software (not HW) services are still big in China? Anything besides OSes?
  - rs186 1y ago
    So you don't have any evidence. Unless you link to something I'll assume you are just making all of this up.
hilbert42 1y ago
"Google still has around $20 billion yearly reasons to remain active in the EU." That just means the fines are inadequate. The solution is to increase them until shareholders are noticeably hurt. Pressure from shareholders on Google's management to stop the offending practices would soon effect the necessary change.
wdb 1y ago
If it helps to stop the reliance on American digital services and don't mind Google leaving Europe or the European Union. EU should start charging the fines they are allowed too for GDPR percentages of the world wide revenue.
irlib 1y ago
They'll be sure to stick around if there's still money to be made. Here’s a case where leaving makes sense: Google was hit with a literal bazillion-dollar fine in Russia.

by jjani 1y ago

jaredklewis 1y ago

I agree with everything you’ve said, but just would also point out that in addition to the fine, it is unclear how changing its practices is going to decrease existing (ill gotten) ad revenues going forward. Presumably these changes will hurt revenue or google would already be following them.

nonethewiser 1y ago

[flagged]

devilkin 1y ago
Oh, you mean, standing up against full monopolies?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
perching_aix 1y ago
The only good thing about blatantly uncharitable comments like this is that at least one can discard them without remorse.
- nonethewiser 1y ago
  My comment was not uncharitable. I edited to add more context.
  - perching_aix 1y ago
    The added context being your uncharitable opinion?
    - nonethewiser 1y ago
      I don't really know what you mean by this
      - perching_aix 1y ago
        > I edited to add more context. Either this was also just edited in or I misread, but what I originally replied to was "I just added more context". Your original comment above is no longer visible as it's been flagged. I don't see your edit, and no one else does either.
        nonethewiser 1y ago
        Thanks for the info
tietjens 1y ago
Legal jurisdiction of dozens of countries is extortion to you, huh?
- nonethewiser 1y ago
  Legal jurisdiction of dozens of countries is not extortion

bee_rider 1y ago

I love that you got one response calling it extortion, and another worrying that it might not have recovered all the money from the abusive practices. The EU is threading the needle deftly here, I guess.

nonethewiser 1y ago
Im not necessarily saying its extortion. Im saying his observation is why the EU could extort Google for a lot more than $3B. My wording was unclear so I tried editing my original comment but apparently it was removed. Why forfeit $20B in revenue in exchange for NOT having to pay $3B? I think that's an astute observation by the original commenter.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  Sorry for the incorrect read I guess. Hopefully it will be restored and I’ll get a chance to re-read it (fwiw I wish it hadn’t been flagged).
  - nonethewiser 1y ago
    I think I've summarized it well enough. I would copy/paste it for clarity but I will avoid that, as I'm not trying to give the impression of evading content moderation. EDIT: FWIW I think your observation that the EU is threading a needle stands. It's a controversial topic that people are very passionate about.
- hopelite 1y ago
  Here's a better option that Google will more likely follow; simply build the fines into operation costs and bill that to EU customers or maybe all Google customers looking to serve ads in the EU. I am not sure why but otherwise seemingly intelligent people seem to be incapable of internalizing that any cost, expense, or fine levied against any corporate entity will always, with 100% (not any other percentage) be rolled into prices. The minor headache of it lowering returns will also be offset and will not really make a difference to any meaningful degree. Most likely Google, just like other corporations that are exposed to this kind of risk, will have set aside a "war chest" they have been building up over prior years, which further would defray any real impact. Then of course there is the fact that these fines are rarely ever the actual amount that will be paid in the end, and most of the time it can be distributed over time. What people should really take away from this is that in the end it really is kind of an extortion racket by the EU, but not of Google, but rather of the advertising companies the end consumers who end up paying from he higher priced ads through product prices, and possibly the general Google customer base. This would really only be an issue that materially impacted Google if there were some kind of real competition in the space, which there is not really. What the EU could possibly do that would have a notable impact is setting industry standards to, e.g., a universal ad format that is ad broker agnostic, e.g., your app, site, service, etc could just serve up ads from all kinds of places, a kind of free market of ads not dominated by Google. But even with that, with Google's advancement in AI generated content, they will likely also dominate the ad generation market soon. The oddest thing is that the EU and Europe in general has all but floundered in many ways regarding the generation of a competitive technology industry. But that's a whole different topic.

PhantomHour 1y ago

The entire idea of "Oh they'll leave" is ridiculous, an empty threat from billionaires who are afraid of regulation. The EU has 450M (+80M for UK & similar non-eu countries that are likely to follow the EU on such regulations) population to the US' 350M. The moment the likes of Google, or Meta, or Microsoft, or whomever else leave the EU, they immediately create a market gap. A market gap that will then in short order be filled with a European company that, because of the population sizes, has a notable comparative advantage to the US tech company. + As much as HN's readership loathes to admit it, regulations like this are "Good, Actually". Google's monopolist practices are bad for both advertisers and services showing ads. Any would-be competitor that arises from Google leaving the market would, by virtue of being forced by law to not be so shitty, be the better option. (And yes, this does also apply to pretty much all of the other big tech regulations as well.) Like, c'mon. "Monopolies bad" is capitalism 101. Even the US' regulators thought Google was going too far.

linotype 1y ago
Nm
- immibis 1y ago
  More importantly though, why haven't they? A lot of it is a because the US brands are more recognizable and cheaper (due to dumping) and grow faster (due to the USA's VC glut). IIRC a company like AirBNB was started in Europe, and was slowly growing, and couldn't get investment because "who would want this?" and then AirBNB was created, and then arrived in Europe, and they still couldn't get investment because "who wants a ripoff clone of AirBNB?"
  - nonethewiser 1y ago
    What do you mean by "dumping?" It sounds like you're just talking about VC.
    - PhantomHour 1y ago
      "Dumping" in the context of international trade; Predatory pricing. The standard model for tech firms has been to run at enormous losses to push competition into bankruptcy or steal their users through subsidized service. No European social media company could compete with e.g. Twitter, running at a loss for TWELVE years. In more recent years, it's things like Uber. Subsidizing ride costs to crush existing taxi services & European taxi startups. This is all, ostensibly, illegal under international law. You can't do it for cars or commodity goods. It's just not been enforced on the tech industry.

pendenthistory 1y ago

No, they will not leave the EU because the EU is not reading the room right now. You think Trump will do nothing to protect FAANG? To be honest, despite being European, I'm surprised the US has let itself be pushed around for so long. I don't say I agree with it, it's just realpolitik.

vkou 1y ago
Odds aren't terrible that Trump will have a fatal stroke before his term is up, the EU will outlive him, and can't and shouldn't tie its sovereign domestic policy and enforcement to cross-Atlantic chain-yanking that changes direction from week to week. No matter what anyone does, he just moves the goal posts. Let him keep his ball.
- dmbche 1y ago
  You never know they might have kept Cheney's heart surgeon somewhere to keep patching him up
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
victorbjorklund 1y ago
What is he going to do? Nuke Paris?
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  [flagged]
bee_rider 1y ago
It is hard to understand what Trump will do… it is hard to talk about this without going on some US politics tangent, which I think is not appreciated on this site. But he isn’t particularly affiliated with FAANG really. He has some startup guys in his orbit, but they aren’t FAANG. And he’s, uh… very motivated by what others have to offer him… so FAANG clearly has some leverage there, but I don’t think it is necessarily a sure thing they’ll work something out.

29athrowaway 1y ago

It is not only revenue, it is mining data, feeding it into Gemini and selling it back to people in the form of ML models.

immibis 1y ago
If you can prove Google did this, the GDPR fines will make them bankrupt. Corporations are rightfully terrified of breaking GDPR.
- troupo 1y ago
  GDPR hasn't been really enforced. I don't think anyone is scared of GDPR anymore.
  - fsflover 1y ago
    https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ https://www.enforcementtracker.com/
    - troupo 1y ago
      Yup. Small fish, tiny fines. The actual wide spread abuse? Nope
      - account42 1y ago
        Unfortunately true. Real enforcement would have companies make sure they stay on the legal side instead of trying to work around the rules.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    Have I got news for you... I'm aware of a single record case that cost the perp 350K. You really don't want to get zapped with the maximum fines based on wilful transgressions on large numbers of people. edit: I misremembered, it was 100K higher.

ivanjermakov 1y ago

I think Google leaving EU will result in more good than harm by shaping a better landscape for innovation and competition.

Xenoamorphous 1y ago
As an European, I wish you were right, but I’m afraid you aren’t. The EU would use public funding to build some sort of Google alternative and it would take ages, would be mediocre and most money would go to waste. Instead of incentivising entrepreneurship, which is what they probably should do. We live very well in the EU. We don’t have to have millions in savings in order to retire. Strong worker protection. Plenty of time off. Low crime rates. Most people fantasise with becoming rich, but as in, “I had a rich aunt that I didn’t even meet in my life and I was the sole heir” or “I won the lottery”, not as in “I grinded for the best 10 years of my life working 100 hours per week before I sold my company” that seems more prevalent in the US. Ordinary people here are super happy if they can buy a small place to live (not a humongous house) even if it takes 25 years to pay it in full, then finish work at 5 and take their kids to the park and have dinner at some restaurant on Saturday. OTOH: I think the current US administration is the best think that could happen to the EU, a big wake up call. Suddenly there’s money to invest in Defense and that kind of thing. Also, hopefully LLMs will diminish Google’s importance, and as long as there’s competitive models not from the US (Mistral, DeepSeek) we might be fine. But Google holds all the cards (data). With stuff like the Harvard animosity they might even stop attracting all the foreign talent. Apple? There’s Samsung for phones at least. Amazon? They’ve become a Temu/Aliexpress. Facebook… huge win if they stopped doing business in Europe. MS? This is the year of Linux in desktop? The Cloud is one of those things where the EU could build something competitive/alternative just with public funding. All running on Linux, of course.
- holoduke 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - Xenoamorphous 1y ago
    Wish you could know what they (media) tell us about the US over here…

outside2344 1y ago

I think it is more likely that Trump point blank tells them they aren't allowed to pay this and that the EU isn't allowed to fine them any longer.

ajsnigrutin 1y ago
And ursula will brag how she got a deal with trump, where google doesn't get fined. ...like with the tarrifs, where US got everything they wanted and EU got nothing.
jjani 1y ago
I don't think I expressed anything about their likelihood of payment - just that they won't stop doing business in the EU. I think your scenario is a real possibility, but ironically one that would cost the US a lot more than it gains. It's really playing with fire, running the risk of even just 1% of EU businesses and consumers opting for EU services over US ones. And just that 1% represents far more than all of the yearly fines to Google/Meta/Apple combined.

rs186 1y ago

> Google stopped operating search in China because at that point there was not a lot of money to be made for them in search there. Source? Back in 2010 when Google left, their search market share was close to 30%. It's hard to think there was no money to be made. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China

jjani 1y ago
China is a special case. As the government has effectively total control, even having 30% market share as Google doesn't mean it's a profitable venture, or that the government hasn't said that it will let it remain one - and there's really no way that it would've given that it's relatively easily replaceable critical infrastructure. Search engines aren't as hard as Googlers like to believe, it was substituted by Baidu succesfully. Think about it - which B2C non-Chinese software (not HW) services are still big in China? Anything besides OSes?
- rs186 1y ago
  So you don't have any evidence. Unless you link to something I'll assume you are just making all of this up.

hilbert42 1y ago

"Google still has around $20 billion yearly reasons to remain active in the EU." That just means the fines are inadequate. The solution is to increase them until shareholders are noticeably hurt. Pressure from shareholders on Google's management to stop the offending practices would soon effect the necessary change.

wdb 1y ago

If it helps to stop the reliance on American digital services and don't mind Google leaving Europe or the European Union. EU should start charging the fines they are allowed too for GDPR percentages of the world wide revenue.

irlib 1y ago

They'll be sure to stick around if there's still money to be made. Here’s a case where leaving makes sense: Google was hit with a literal bazillion-dollar fine in Russia.