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EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps
- hunglee2 3mo agoEU regulatory apparatus is maybe only part of the EU which is operates without obsequiousness to the US; on the one hand, this is necessary assertion of sovereignty, on the other you fear for the wider collateral damage which will inevitably ensue. Trump gonna respond to this with an escalation for sure
- mentalfist 3mo ago[flagged]
- yodsanklai 3mo ago[flagged]
- inemesitaffia 3mo agoLess than the Iranian regime has.
- Hikikomori 3mo agoAt least they didn't double tap a school.
- inemesitaffia 3mo agoAgents of the Iranian government rape women as part of religious enforcement and hide bodies post murder to hide the evidence. There's no evidence of double tapping the school. That requires live surveillance. Come back when you have video of that.
- Hikikomori 3mo agoHey you forgot to call me an anti semite.
- inemesitaffia 3mo agoSay hello to your Grand Wizard. I think that's more your thing than defacing Holocaust memorials. I give the Islamic regime in Iran the same amount of leeway I give Putin and the Taliban.
- inemesitaffia 3mo agoApart from that, the IRGC has trained militants in Africa and supplied them with weapons and staff augmentation. One of the groups took over a church where refugees were hiding and burnt them alive in the building.
- Hikikomori 3mo agoHow many revolutions, terrorists, genocides, dictators has usa supported? I can easily say that the Iran regime should not exist, what I can't stand is people pretending USA has not done similar shit for the last 100 years. They're even the reason why the current Iranian regime is in power.
- inemesitaffia 2mo agoYou can't and they aren't.
- yodsanklai 3mo agoIs that the standard Trump should be measured against?
- inemesitaffia 3mo agoIranian conflict was mentioned. I'm not the one who showed up with metrological claims.
- krisroadruck 3mo agoThat's one read. For me it feels like practically (ASML, ARM, SAP not withstanding) their only "contribution" to tech is fines and exporting regulation. Sometimes this works out well (usb-c on iPhone), but most of the time it feels like if they want software, hardware, or the web to operate the way they want, perhaps they should try to actually produce some of it instead of being wholly reliant on others while also trying to dictate the terms. I also don't really feel like Trump will do anything, mainly because neither he, nor anyone else before him has any track record of attempting to block or slow EU overreach into US tech interests. Or maybe I'm just cranky and pessimistic.
- cleansy 3mo agoGoogle, Apple and co are free not to do business in the EU. There is no "overreach". It's a 450M pop market with a high median per-capita income. There are many reasons why the EU has a rather small tech industry of its own, high up among them that the EU does comparatively little to protect its market compared to China where most US tech companies don't even bother to enter anymore. In China, if a fine like this hits you, you are not allowed to do business anymore until it's either paid or revoked in court. So yeah, the EU is very lenient on all accounts.
- thesmtsolver2 3mo agoIsn't the median income per capita higher in the US. European companies are likewise free to pay tariffs or not do business. EU does much more to protect its market compared to US. EU was never a developing country like China. Most countries in EU benefited from centuries of exploitation of Asia, Africa and the Americas. They don't need protectionism. It is immoral and ugly.
- imp0cat 3mo agoIs ASML really that insignificant?
- inigyou 3mo agoYes, it's only one company out of the whole market. If ASML makes EU count as a good tech market then everywhere is a good tech market because it has at least one important tech company.
- inigyou 3mo agoTrump has tariffed Canada 50% allegedly because of wildfires. He acts randomly, your actions don't matter either way.
- nubg 3mo ago[flagged]
- inigyou 3mo agoActually you know that giving Putin Crimea won't stop him bombing Kiev, seeing as they gave him Crimea, and then he bombed Kiev to get Donetsk. He also suicided politicians while we were buying his gas. "Once you pay the Danegeld, you'll never get rid of the Dane."
- flohofwoe 3mo agoYou think all those deranged nuclear threats from Dmytry Medvedev and all those "Russki Mir from Lisbon to Vladivostok" imperial phantasies are some "good tsar, bad boyars" bullshit? Russia won't stop unless they are stopped or at least incapacitated for the next few decades.
- louthy 3mo agoThe Supreme Court has already said that blanket tariffs aren't allowed, so it's all bluster, as per usual.
- inigyou 3mo agoThe current government has defied the supreme court many times. It can do this because the police force is controlled by the government, not by the supreme court, so it won't arrest the government.
- xorcist 3mo agoThe private sector often complies in advance. Large logistics companies collected obviously illegal taxes long before they were challenged in court. It's not easy and the cost of doing business is already high, and not only in the US.
- oaiey 3mo agoThis is the fine after it got influenced by the political branch. It is a sign towards the companies that the law still bites and has to be adhered but reduced in this case to a level where it can be accepted by Google without major escalation in trade politics.
- flohofwoe 3mo ago> Trump gonna respond to this with an escalation for sure This is basically the equivalent of the weekly nuclear annihilation threat from the Moscow direction ;) Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%27s_final_warning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%27s_final_warning
- hunglee2 3mo agoto be fair to Trump, he does respond to corporate lobby - Pichai just got to make a phone call and an EO will be rolling out in short order. This is not because Gogole controls Trump, it is simply that Trump is a nationalist and will defend US companies, he just needs to be reminded to do so
- yodsanklai 3mo ago> Trump is a nationalist and will defend US companies Does it though? Companies have to corrupt him in various ways to get his favors. Pichai won't get that for free.
- cmiles8 3mo agoFor Google this is just like parking tickets to UPS. A cost of doing business in town.
- riffraff 3mo agothis comment always comes up and it's _wrong_. The goal of the regulation is to get the operators to comply, which they usually do after fines (EDIT: and litigations and whining, of course), because the costs of infractions are increased if they don't comply.
- hirako2000 3mo agoThe cost increases, but given the revenue Google generates how is that not just a tax? I've never received a dollar from the EU as a victim. If the fines are moderate and big co keeps paying that's steady revenue for the EU institutions.
- ivan_gammel 3mo agoIt‘s nice to have such revenue to fund EU programs on digital sovereignty. European institutions give plenty of money to startups. You need an entry to the program, but when you are in, it can account for 50-70% or more in your early stage funding. And that‘s nice, because you keep more equity.
- mosura 3mo ago> You need an entry to the program, but when you are in, it can account for 50-70% or more in your early stage funding. It is almost entirely unsurprising that the EU tech industry is such a disaster area when people say things like this as if they are a good thing.
- brazukadev 3mo agoI find it more interesting that US Americans think letting their companies do whatever they want everywhere (as they currently do) is the better "strategy".
- sylware 3mo agogoogle: 1 - restore interop with noscript/basic HTML browsers, stop favoring your 'whatwg cartel' web engine. 2 - gmail: restore interop with self-hosted SMTP servers without DNS (filtering on the IPv[46] literal from email address, this is stronger than SPF). And there is probably more to add.
- dlahoda 3mo agoWhat exactly monopoly is here?
- sylware 3mo ago"anti-trust" in many EU countries, is made of "competition authorities", namely dominant corporations on some significant "markets" get strong rules forced upon them that to allow to exist any reasonable real-life alternatives. Here, Big Tech must interop with Small Tech. A common malicious behavior from Big Tech is to inflate by tons the required complexity and size of their 'tech' in order to make it out of reach by small competitors. This is one of the roles of market regulation. It seems they are now using 'security' (something which is only best-effort, it actually does not exist) to scare people to go to alternatives (how deep the rabbit hole goes here... mmmmh...) In my EU country, we have a very good internet, thanks to _HARDCORE_ regulation which allowed small alternatives to be bootstrapped and to exist and grow. It is a bit different for gogol which is trying to create a 'very walled garden' like the "rotten fruit" company with this 101 malicious behavior on the long run: strong interop with 'Small Tech' at the beginning, slowly (~decade+) but surely this interop is broken to favor the 'Big Tech' from their cartel. It is really complex: devil hides in the 'technical' details, it is case by case over some kind of continous spectrum. Here, it boiles down to the complexity/size of protocols, file formats with their stability in time: if you regulate here, "Small Tech" becomes a real-life alternative. And don't be a fool at believing they are not talking to each other and play fair...
- inigyou 3mo agosylware: 3 - stop writing comments only in english, stop favoring your 'anglosphere' linguistic bubble
- dlahoda 3mo agoArticle has no reference how exactly fine was reasoned to be specific amount. Nor specific examples of violations.
- robin_reala 3mo agoPresumably that’s covered by article 30 of the law: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/1925/oj#art_30 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/1925/oj#art_30
- lnsru 3mo agoEU just killed all hardware startups with Cyber Resilience Act. It killed all the SMEs <50 employees in hardware area too. The lost income from European companies will be replaced with fines for US companies. That’s a strategy! Visionaries at work. There is Wikipedia article about this topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_Resilience_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_Resilience_Act
- BadBadJellyBean 3mo agoI'm not familiar with the Act. Can you explain how it would kill theses startups?
- lnsru 3mo agoSo basically you need 3 persons writing compliance documentation and taking care of cybersecurity. Basically another 200000€ personal cost year in low cost area. 250000€ or more in bigger cities. You have a microprocessor in your product and it’s done deal. No big deal for corporations though. Buddy’s workplace hired new compliance department for this topic with 30 persons. That’s competition european way.
- BadBadJellyBean 3mo agoI'd rather have that than insecure hardware. It seems like it forces security to be a first class priority instead of an afterthought.
- logicchains 3mo agoIt forces Europeans wanting to build hardware startups to go overseas, so there's even fewer new European hardware companies and Europe becomes even more dependent on the US and China.
- BadBadJellyBean 3mo agoJust like everyone left when the GDPR went into place? Having safety standards in place (and yes that also means documenting them) can even be a selling point. To have demonstrably secure hardware according to a standard can be highly desirable. I think losing the companies that don't have security as a main priority isn't too bad. I assume that the EU will create import restrictions if there is a meaningful shift to avoid EU rules.
- input_sh 3mo agoPDFs of decisions in case somebody wants to learn more: Google Search decision: https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100209_2712.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/2... Android decision: https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202629/DMA_100220_2683.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/2...
- dlahoda 3mo agoSkimmed (without AI). Look like feature request lists.
- moronicles 3mo agoA list of features that would allow third-party AI systems background access to your microphone, camera, screen contents, location, notifications, contacts, SMS, Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Maps, and Phone. If this were granted, the expectation is that we would act surprised when it is fast-followed by requirements to use EU-controlled systems that can monitor this content.
- benoau 3mo agoThe other option is nobody has this access, since it is only required because Google have built this access for themselves and the DMA simply requires they do not have privileged access because it is not competitive. This is a problem that only exists because Google wants that access for their own benefits.
- moronicles 3mo agoIt is required to facilitate the AI features Google wants for its product. What you're advocating is not having those features. That's fine, but it is also not going to happen. If this is what the EU wanted they'd be asking for these features to be disabled, not to have access.
- firesteelrain 3mo agoInteresting to see how Google solves this in their UI because this isn’t a new problem: In 2017, they were fined for a similar problem with Shopping and the auction house concept to compete for placement was heavily scrutinized. It’s all sort of intertwined now.
- jdw64 3mo agoI looked it up, and it seems that one issue is that Google, as a DMA gatekeeper, is supposed to provide anonymous data to other search services, but in practice, important parts of the actual data have been removed. The other issue is that competing AI services (not just Gemini) should also be allowed to run integrated app search. Reading about it, both points seem valid to me.
- BadBadJellyBean 3mo agoAlso apps need to be allowed to conduct their transactions outside the appstore and the appstore must allow them to advertise that.
- benoau 3mo agoAnd supposedly, "steering must be free". Or at least that's what they told Apple when fining €500M, I think today they both charge up to about 20% commission if apps use third party payments.
- amazingamazing 3mo ago[flagged]
- mastermage 3mo agoHow is the US doing with their Tariffs?
- amazingamazing 3mo agoI didn’t see anything mentioned on tariffs in article. In any case tariffs are a dumb policy.
- croes 3mo agoHow is the US doing? Seems like the missed boat is the Titanic.
- gear54rus 3mo agoDoing just fine calling most of the american insanity for what it is. Beating apple and the likes into submission and making them produce actually somewhat good products.
- jacekm 3mo agoPretty well, to the point where the US administration complains that there's a trade imbalance. (which is true for manufactured goods, false when we count in services)
- sunaookami 3mo agoOn a huge decline and the people are dissatisfied which leads to populist parties becoming more popular and the current governments trying to hold their power by passing draconian laws.
- actionfromafar 3mo agoLike the US.
- 3mo ago
- timpera 3mo agoThe lengthy legal battle against these fines is going to be extremely interesting, especially on the Shopping/Hotels/Flights side since it is an extremely competitive market. I wonder if the lower EU court will keep its overly proactive approach despite the CJEU's reversals.
- warrenmiller 3mo agowhere does the money from these fines go to? to the people affected or just gov coffers?
- dmos62 3mo agoGoverment coffers fund public works.
- ExoticPearTree 3mo ago[flagged]
- izacus 3mo agoPlease refrain from these kind of lazy comments, especially when they're trivially proven wrong.
- ExoticPearTree 3mo agoHow are they false? Will the EC fund the road in front of my house from the money it gets from Google? Doubt it. And the AC is real, during the heatwave a few weeks back, the EC turned it off for the lower floors and kept it on the higher floor where the commissioners work. It was an article linked here on HN too.
- Steve16384 3mo ago"EU invests €2.8 billion in 94 transport projects": https://transport.ec.europa.eu/news-events/news/eu-invests-eu28-billion-94-transport-projects-boost-sustainable-and-connected-mobility-across-europe-2025-07-03_en https://transport.ec.europa.eu/news-events/news/eu-invests-e... And heat rises. :D
- ExoticPearTree 3mo agoThat is less than 30mm on average per project. Pocket change for port infrastructure or decent railway improvements. And yet, on that list it does not say the money comes from Google and the road outside my house is also not there. You have to do better.
- ExoticPearTree 3mo ago[flagged]
- rando1234 3mo agoWhat are you wittering on about. Get a grip.
- maelito 3mo agoI hope these fines will fund NLNet.
- inigyou 3mo agoHave you applied? What's your project?
- DivingForGold 3mo ago[flagged]
- dathinab 3mo agoGoogle knowingly and _intentionally_ breached the law. A fundamental rule for capitalism to work well long term is that oligopoly and similar should not exist and must be rained in or outright split up if they exist. If that rule isn't followed capitalism turns from a tool which can support democracy to one which will sooner or later tear it apart. It's basically the economic version of the number one rule of democracy: "never concentrate too much power into two few people". This also isn't just some theoretical thing, if you look through history having too much money/power in to few entities(1) always sooner or later lead to suffering of people, injustice and collapse. Lastly it's worth noting that historically companies often do challenge such fines and managed to cut them down by quite a bit, that is iff they actually started being compliant by then. Sadly the end result is often still that, the economically benefit of huge companies systematic breaking the law, outweighs their penalties. I mean they often do calculate the most likely level of penalties into their cost-benefit analysis. (1): Through it should be noted that this is about effective power, not theoretic power. It isn't rare through history to have people which theoretically are autocrats with absolute power, but practically the power is spread quite widely and in turn them having a brain fart, mental decline, megalomaniac, irrational hate against some groups of people etc. didn't lead directly to atrocities being committed.
- inigyou 3mo agoYou are describing free markets, I think, not capitalism. Capitalism is when rich people control everything, and we've achieved that.
- Muromec 3mo agoThat usually corrects itself too, eventually.
- dathinab 3mo agoif we are nit picking definition then to quote wikipedia: > Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and its use for the purpose of obtaining profit this neither implies free markets nor that "rich people control everything" but it more like a large category of economical systems we haven't always given distinct names but common reasoning why capitalism and democracy work well together are based on a form of capitalism which fundamental requires fair and free markets. This are the forms of capitalism the US had been fighting for in the past, the forms of capitalism most EU countries have committed to, but definitely not the form of capitalism we have in the US today. The forms of capitalism which endanger instead of complement democracy have IMHO no place in democratic countries and IMHO we should give this harmful sub-category of capitalism it's own name to be able to better fight it. Anyway just because there are bad forms of capitalism doesn't mean there aren't also good forms. And when pushing for "fixing" capitalism you at least have some chance to reach people. When you instead push to "replace" capitalism you are pretty fast hitting a wall where people aren't even willing to entertain reasoning with you (which is probably why the right wing tries to re-lable most things they don't like as anti-capitalist, communist or socialist even when the arguments have nothing to do with any of that (well the term socialism has been redefine and appropriated so often it has lost any meaning in taken out of context, but that is a different topic).
- zoobab 3mo agoPocket money.
- ChrisArchitect 3mo agoEU source release: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_1670 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_...
- saltysalt 3mo agoUltimately AI will kill Google's search monopoly, not fines.
- shevy-java 3mo agoThat's an interesting comment. I noticed already years before AI emerged that Google ruined its search engine. I am not sure AI per se kills search engines, but interestingly the other search engines also suck immensely. Even from the User Interface, which is strange to me. Qwant just copy/pasted Google's horrible UI. DuckDuckGo is praised for reasons I don't understand - it also produces really low quality results. It seems nobody is able to come up with really good search engines anymore - they always end up being absolute horrid jokes in this or that area.
- saltysalt 3mo agoYes you are correct, most are horrible. I built my own as a hobby because I wanted to go back to the "ten blue links" model of the early Internet, but freely admit that model is now dead with the majority of end-users asking their AI assistants instead. Gemini is vital to Google as a result.
- 28304283409234 3mo agoTried Kagi.com yet? Search without being an ad-target in itself is a breath of fresh air.
- shevy-java 3mo agoFines are not enough. Mandatory jailtime - otherwise they just shrug it off.
- 28304283409234 3mo agoLooking at NIS2, that mindset is actually developing: "personal liability for members of management bodies".
- baridbelmedar 3mo agoThe EU as a whole is walking a tightrope. Its largest economies still depend heavily on the US market. If the current US regime perceives that US companies are being targeted by EU "taxes", regardless of whether those laws are legitimate, there is a real danger of US retaliation. Key sectors could take the hit, including automotive manufacturing, industrial equipment, chemicals, electronics, fashion, textiles, and luxury food and wine. Given that these nations are already managing high debt loads while funding generous social welfare programs and expanding their defense budgets, trade sanctions could cause serious damage... So yeah...EU is performing a delicate balancing act here.
- pseudony 3mo agoYes. But what this discussion so often misses is.. So is the US. The US needs military bases, it needs general market access, it wants to sell military equipment and so on and so on. The US is already being reckless with the relationship and diversification is underway, but how deep the split will be is in large part determined by how the US wants to behave going forward. It's like a divorce, there aren't really any winners here (in terms of wealth, assets, ...). So it's a tightrope both need to walk, balancing each other's interests.
- lardosaurusrex 3mo agoI think that's the point; much like how Canada isn't blinkimg every time the US jacks up whatever nonsense tariffs. They know it's going to hurt and they can't just order their own country -- or in the case of the EU; countries -- to fully decouple and so they're using the pain to encourage the creation and growth of alternatives. Nobody says it isn't painful or that it isn't going to suck but it's viewed as inevitable rather than something to be avoided.
- tialaramex 3mo ago> there is a real danger of US retaliation This would make some sense under normal circumstances. However the Trump administration isn't "retaliating" except in the same sense you saw ICE "retaliating" by murdering unarmed protesters. Violent bullies respect strength to the extent they respect anything at all.
- 3mo ago
- granzymes 3mo agoAt this point I assume Google is just budgeting for a $1B annual tax for operating in the EU.
- cadamsdotcom 3mo agoIt'd be great if they put the headline in terms of how many minutes of revenue this is.