
What happens when Google says “we aren’t going to pay your fines”? - longstaff2009
https://medium.com/@ben_longstaff/what-happens-when-google-says-we-arent-going-to-pay-your-fines-f35f752253c0
======
mcv
If people's GMail and Android phones stop working, they may get angry at the
French government, but outside France a lot of people would also want to move
away from Google services like GMail, Android, etc, because Google would show
your access to them can't be trusted. Google would lose a lot more users than
just France.

Yes, it would cause chaos in France, but it would also really hurt Google.

~~~
longstaff2009
if Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft formed a union of sorts it
would be hard to move away from

~~~
madeofpalk
In places like EU, this may be illegal cartel behaviour.

In Australia, the Big Four banks applied to the consumer watchdog for
permission to team together and negotiate as a block - form a cartel - to
Apple over Apple Pay and NFC access. The banks were denied, and just last
month the biggest bank added Apple Pay support (after a number of the
'smaller' ones added it).

~~~
rblatz
And what would they do? Force them to do business in their country? By
presumably what means?

~~~
slimsag
\- Detaining any executives of the company found within borders or in regions
where extradition is possible.

\- Seizing all company assets, offices, source code, etc.

\- Breaking the company up and promoting in-borders employees into management
positions, etc.

~~~
wav-part
Its not like Corporations can pay someone else, say US or China, to protect
their assets and people. US totally wont f __k EUs shit up for few hundreds of
billions. No sir, countries can seize and kidnap without consequences, because
muh sovereignty.

~~~
vageli
> No sir, countries can seize and kidnap without consequences, because muh
> sovereignty.

The Jamal Khashoggi tragedy is a very recent example that this has been the
sentiment for some time.

------
aristus
People forget this has already happened, more or less. In 2011 Google
blackholed Belgium's newspapers when they got uppity. Pretty sure it happened
a few times before that as well.

[https://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/0028255/belgian-
new...](https://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/0028255/belgian-newspapers-
delisted-on-google)

Also, many years ago, Google ghosted CNET because they didn't like their
reporting. They didn't blacklist them from results, but it was an option.

[https://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/](https://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/)

~~~
tjalfi
Another example is that Google News ended service in Spain after a link tax
was passed[0].

[0] [https://www.huffingtonpost.com/enrique-dans/google-news-
leav...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/enrique-dans/google-news-leaving-
spain_b_6325244.html)

------
jonahb
> Google is a business, it has a responsibility to make money for
> shareholders. This is its sole responsibility.

Uh, where'd you get that from? The company has an obligation to act in the the
interest of shareholders, but "interest" doesn't necessarily mean "money."
Moreover, that's not its _only_ obligation. This guy seems to agree:

[https://www.cultofmac.com/268413/tim-cook-tells-profit-
obses...](https://www.cultofmac.com/268413/tim-cook-tells-profit-obsessed-
investors-sell-stock/)

~~~
longstaff2009
You are right, it should say "act in the interest of" rather than "make
money".

------
salthound
That's one silly power fantasy.

But what if they really tried to do it? Well, the most likely outcome would be
the US government declaring Google a risk to national security, and taking
direct control. After all if this could happen to France, it could happen to
the US, and governments of sovereign states really really hate non-state
competitors that could potentially meddle with the operation of the state.

After that, whatever remains of Google would probably be auctioned off to
cover the costs of the backlash (and probable legal action) from Google's
corporate clients.

~~~
mruts
You're saying that Google would be nationalized if they backed out of France?
Notwithstanding that it would be illegal, how is choosing which countries to
transact business in a breach of national security?

~~~
salthound
No. What the article details is not an ordinary exit from the French market,
but an overnight attempt to pressure France into a change of government, which
would involve disabling critical infrastructure and not fulfilling contractual
and legal obligations in an attempt to make the French state unable to perform
its functions.

And yes, having a company with the power and will to "digitally coup" world
powers would be an immediate threat to national security, no question about
that.

I don't know where you got the nationalization part from: U.S. courts and law
enforcement are perfectly capable of taking temporary control of companies'
resources in an effort to stop or prevent criminal activity, and none of that
involves nationalizing anything.

------
siedes
2.2 billion would not be worth the money to alienate an entire nation and
cause major lashback around the world who hears of the news. Those are all
potential customers. They would do better to just pay up.

Now the question is, when will it be worth it for an all-powerful
multinational corporation like Google to say fuck it and use their power to
influence government policy on a global level? How much money or what would
have to be at stake for them to turn their back on "Don't be evil"?

~~~
tyingq
I would guess an exodus from the other side too. Even though I'm not French,
if Google blocks France...it affects me.

I'd have to quit hosting my things on Google's cloud, app engine, Google
drive, analytics, etc, if I expected people in France to be able to see it.

------
ctrlaltdev
That would be the best thing that could ever happen.

Refusal of service?

I don't know anything that would make people run to another service faster.

~~~
longstaff2009
for consumers maybe, but if you don't have access to your data its
problematic. for business and government departments it could be crippling

~~~
longstaff2009
I did a few migration projects when I worked at the Discovery Channel and they
took months of planning to ensure continuation of services.

~~~
avmich
So is Google promising continuation of services before turning them off?

~~~
longstaff2009
in the hypothetical scenario where France tries to enforce a huge fine and
Google says no thanks, France pushes and then Google turns off service it
would be crippling. Google has a lot of power in that sort of negotiation.

Which is why I think it was only a token 0.05% of global revenue for the fine
rather than 4%

~~~
avmich
I'd expect law signatories to raise an eyebrow. The purpose of the law is
different.

------
lukevdp
Given that Google execs were having another crack at entering China (and all
the “compliance” that comes with that) last year, my guess is that Google has
a pretty high pain threshold for compliance.

------
sunstone
Then the Googlers go to jail or they bomb Google's headquarters. Google is not
a nation state and wouldn't last long in a fight. More seriously, check out
Huawei to see how a huge company pissing off a large country is doing.

------
avmich
> At some point, compliance becomes bad business.

It's not even funny. If compliance is bad business for you, well, your other
choice is to not have business.

Wonder what shareholders would say, but not too much. Not one of them.

~~~
longstaff2009
So I think that is why the fine is 0.05% of global revenue instead of the full
4% that can be enforced under GDPR. Both the government and Google can spin it
as a win.

But say instead France asks for 4% of global revenue, and there are rumblings
from Spain, Italy, Germany, UK, Sweden, Poland, Romania, Denmark and Greece
that if France is successful they will do the same.

Suddenly the potential fines are 40% of global revenue, but Europe doesn't
generate 40% of global revenue.

~~~
avmich
The goal of GDPR is to discourage bad business practices. It's expected that
fines should be prohibitive for predatory business models. Until Google will
comply - or go out of business - the fines will grow.

I mean, if somehow Google would manage to pay biggest possible fine without
changing practices, I'd expect the law updated to bigger fines.

~~~
ardy42
> I mean, if somehow Google would manage to pay biggest possible fine without
> changing practices, I'd expect the law updated to bigger fines.

And if they refused to pay, I imagine new laws would be passed to force
compliance...such as criminal penalties against corporate executives and board
members who choose to leave the fines unpaid.

Sundar Pichai's going to have Google pay up if the alternative is that he
could end up in a French jail.

------
lykr0n
The countries start seizing your assets, which for Google would be their
Datacenters in Europe.

------
beerlord
The average person doesn't care about privacy (they have nothing interesting
to share anyway), and better-targeted ads makes capitalism more efficient.
Plus, the services that ads enable are very widely used and popular.

All that the EU has served to accomplish is to kill tech in Europe, place
popups and opt-in buttons onto every website (accept cookies?), and to extort
a few billions out of American tech companies.

Europe can't do tech because its taxes on labour are too high and the whole
continent speaks 30 different languages. There, I said it.

~~~
unnouinceput
You forget that 'murica can't do tech either these days, hihi. With all the
outsourcing these days hardly any tech is there to make anyway.

------
davidgh
I think the big tech companies are just fine with increasing regulation. They
are in position to manage them, and benefit from the fact that the regulatory
environment makes it that much more difficult for new companies to enter the
market.

------
unnouinceput
I cannot wait for this to happen. I dare, I double dare GAFA/FAANG or whatever
acronym you want for them to make such move. I want them to flex their muscles
to see who wins. My guess? DuckDuckGo, Linux and the likes. Maps? OpenMaps.
Social network? I don't give a flying fly, definitely another in a year will
rise. As for costs for not paying? Like all those companies don't have
distributed offices to make local caches in each country? Rally them all up
and auction baby. Get some money against those fines. I bet in 2 years all
those companies will either disappear like Kodak when refused to change with
times or they will comply with GDPR big time. I have news for Ben Longstaff,
the article's author, GDPR is new times; your "My guess? Not long." is
shortsighted.

------
upstandingdude
Spoken like a true american...

------
dgllghr
"There are no nations. There are no peoples... There is only one holistic
system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate,
multinational dominion of dollars... It is the international system of
currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the
natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic
structure of things today! And [France] has meddled with the primal forces of
nature, and [France] will atone!"

This is the dystopia we have built. We have allowed corporations to have to
much leverage and control.

~~~
longstaff2009
I think the extent of that leverage is not well understood.

It's like AMI trying to blackmail Jeff Bezos, but having all of their sites
hosted with AWS ....

What happens when it makes business sense for Google, Amazon, Apple and
Facebook to start charging nation states a license fee for offering their
services into their country and all the government services rely on their
cloud offerings?

~~~
greenleafjacob
Presumably that nation state puts someone in jail.

~~~
longstaff2009
On what grounds? They would just be changing their business model

~~~
ardy42
> On what grounds?

Because you thumb your nose at nation-states at your peril.

~~~
longstaff2009
I like this phrase a lot :)

------
bunnycorn
Simply childish.

