
European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance - antr
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-1784_en.htm
======
throwaway2016a
I might be in a minority here and I'll probably get down voted but this result
scares me... and I used to be CTO one of those competing price comparison
sites that show up lower in the results so if anyone should agree it should be
me.

While it made me angry when Google put their results above ours, I never
questioned that they had a right to do that. It is their website. They are not
a utility. At what point does a company cross the line and become one that the
EU feels can no longer promote their own product?

After all, the actual products here are the products being sold not the
comparison sites. If I search for baseball bat the product is the bat not the
competing search results.

What's next? Having to give equal ranking to Yahoo! search results in their
search page? It sounds extreme but I would have also thought this was extreme
until 2 minutes ago.

Or perhaps more accurate... having to completely do away with One Box
entirely. After all, when I search for a movie it displays the actor
information and movie times before it displays the link to the theater website
or IMDB.

~~~
makomk
It should scare you. The EU just used their regulatory power to force the
world's biggest search engine to make their user experience worse in order to
benefit other companies. Before Google penalized all the vertical search
sites, doing a Google search for certain kinds of products was a terrible
experience; page after page of crappy information-free autogenerated sites
hoping to make $$$ from ads and referral fees that were SEO-optimized to the
gills, making it impossible to find actual information.

Not only that, but the specialized infoboxes at the top of Google's search
results were an almost direct response to their competitor Microsoft doing
exactly the same thing and promoting it at the main advantage of their search.
Microsoft's comparison shopping subsidiary which they used for their search
results was one of the companies complaining to the EU about this. Now that
Microsoft have convinced the EU to ban Google from doing this, they can once
again point to the fact that they offer this extra contextual information as a
reason for using them and Google cannot compete.

~~~
Denzel
There's a _clear_ difference between what Bing and Google are doing. Please
don't mistake the facts:

1\. The EC is _not_ asking Google to make their user experience worse.

2\. The EC does _not_ have a problem with sponsored search results.

Google's user experience is the generic algorithm that determines what is the
most relevant result. Google _deliberately_ did not subject its own comparison
shopping service to that algorithm while subjecting competitors' to it.
Furthermore, Google took the FIRST result position.

Why would they do this if they have the best user experience and it should
come up first anyways?

Contrast with Bing, when I search for "baseball bat": The first 3 results
above the fold are organic unpaid SERPs. (Nothing from Bing in the top three
spots.) And their shopping ads are displayed to the right of the organic
search results.

If Google would've treated these products like ads, then the EC wouldn't have
had a problem. But they didn't. And they have a dominant share of the general
internet search market.

Google _deliberately_ tried to exploit its market dominance to enter into
another market in which it was not competitive.

There's nothing scary about this fine.

~~~
i_cant_speel
But it's Google's website. Why shouldn't they be able to promote their own
products on their site?

~~~
adamnemecek
Because it's anti competitive behavior.

~~~
aries1980
I don't see AMD offerings on Intel's website either.

~~~
adamnemecek
You are missing the point entirely.

------
andmarios
The press release is well written. It explains why Google is fined in an easy
way to understand, covering most aspects; what is the problematic behavior,
why it is considered as problematic, which data lead to this decision, etc,
whilst not painting the company in a negative light.

Opinions on the decision will sure differ among readers, but I think the
decision is in place with the majority of EU citizens' consensus.

~~~
apatters
Take the money Google made by breaking the law and give it to non-profit
foundations which are dedicated to developing free/libre alternatives to
Google services.

This will kill two birds with one stone--firstly it will correct the economic
damage Google has caused by abusing their monopoly position. Secondly it will
make it harder for them to maintain and abuse their monopoly in the future.

The software industry today is filled with companies who seek to _establish a
monopoly so that they can extract monopoly rents._ This behavior almost always
skirts the boundaries of legality, and it's getting worse. Companies are being
created with the explicit business model of throwing huge sums of money at
illegal activity in order to establish market dominance--see Uber.

Monopolies are not good for markets and this belief is already reflected in
our antitrust laws. We need to give those laws some teeth and come up with
creative solutions that don't just punish bad behavior, but also encourage
competition.

~~~
vog
*> Take the money [...] give it to non-profit foundations

Even better: Make Google pay them directly. I don't know if that is possible
on European level, but here in Germany, fines are often paid directly from the
criminal to the non-profit, which is usually chosen in a round-robin-like
fashion from the local non-profits in the criminal's (or court's) region.

------
theBobBob
The thing is, personally I prefer getting integrated results from Google's
other search services when I do a Google search. I like getting Google Maps
results when I search for a location, I like getting Google Flights results
etc. When I do a Google search I am not just using it as a simple website
search. I want it to use it to search the whole Google suite of services. If
they are forced to stop doing this it will make my search experience worse for
me.

Random, maybe silly idea. Maybe they could start providing two search streams.
One would just be a simpler website search while the other would be a more
involved google services search as well as a general website search. This way
search users could explicitly say that they want to see direct integrated
results from the whole Google ecosystem.

~~~
cyxxon
> If they are forced to stop doing this it will make my search experience
> worse for me.

This seems to be the whole point of the fine. Currently Google's services just
so damned conveniently integrated that no one uses competitors' services, even
if they are better.

The thing is, though, I am totally with you here. I don't want to use one of
the other services for maps, or flights, or these snippets for information.
They are just search results for me. The integration is more important for me
than ... better filtering, or whatnot. I can always go to one of those sites,
but there really is no need, And frankly, it would really, really suck if I
had to now.

Edit: From the text:

> Google has to apply the same processes and methods to position and display
> rival comparison shopping services in Google's search results pages as it
> gives to its own comparison shopping service.

What does that even mean? Right now Google has a link for Maps, Images,
Shopping, Videos, ... in the top bar. Do they need to change it to Maps,
Images, Shooping (Google), Shopping (Idealo), Shopping (yet another service),
...? Embedding results would not work. Have a link called Shopping that does
not list results, but points to more shopping sites, maybe with the search
term already preappended? Meh...

~~~
Radle
Did you read the articel? Google is not allowed to put itself or products from
Alphabet higher in the search results than third party products.

What kind of links they put up is googles decision. If they made a link
"Shopping" next to "Maps" and "Images" everything would be fine.

The problem is search results. Consumers expect all results to be shown
fairly, by not doing so Google violated it's position.

This is not about linking to products. It's about deceiving the customer.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Sure, but the question is, where the line will be drawn.

A "Shopping" link next to "Maps" and "Images" is probably OK, but it's also
completely useless. I'd be surprised if more than a fraction of people doing
comparison shopping actually clicked that link.

Intentionally pushing down results of competitors via algorithmic criteria is
obviously bad, but say they stopped doing that. What about the inline shopping
box at the top of search results? That's still putting their own service in a
prominent position. Probably bad...

... but then this concern immediately applies to translations, song lyrics,
unit conversions, maps, shopping hours, etc. The kind of results that as a
user I _want_ to see. Will that be disallowed to? If so, this will make Google
Search a _significantly worse product_.

~~~
makomk
I personally reckon that making Google Search a significantly worse product is
part of the reason why this happened. One of the companies pushing for this is
Ciao, a comparison shopping service owned by Microsoft and used to provide the
equivalent feature for Bing search results. Microsoft clearly know how useful
these kinds of contextual results are, because before Google had them they
were promoting them as Bing's big advantage over Google. Now they've managed
to get the EU to restrict Google's ability to compete by offering them.

------
mythz
This is a ridiculous figure, how can they come up with a figure more than 2x
times the amount of the previous record (for Intel's egregious behavior) for
deciding what content goes on their own platform, which wasn't previously
known to be illegal?

What do they want to force Google to do now, prohibit being able to advertise
on their own platform? give their competitors priority placement for free? How
many rival comparison services do they need to show now? There could be
hundreds popping up to take advantage of the forced exposure with scam and ad-
ridden pages. Does Google have to show them all? Who decides? Will this ruling
extend to all other relevant content Google shows around Search results?

Guess we'll have to see, but this ruling could force Google to provide a
degraded Customer experience which I guess is one way to make their Services
less appealing and allow competition to catch up.

~~~
kuisch
As stated in the press release, the fine has been calculated on the basis of
the value of Google's revenue from its comparison shopping service in the 13
EEA countries concerned, taking into account the "duration and gravity" of the
infringement. What the commission is asking is simply equal treatment between
rival comparison shopping services and its own.

~~~
briandear
When I visit rivalshoppingservice.com then I would expect to see that rival
shopping service. When I visit google, I would expect to see google.

Are the rivals going to be required to show google results now or is this
really not about choice but about crippling google or is it about extracting
an easy multi-billion dollar payday?

When I go to the SNCF (French rail) website, are they showing me flight and
bus options or only their train results?

Nobody is forcing anyone to visit google. It’s a website. Perhaps if the EU
really cared, they’d ask themselves why Europe hasn’t produced a credible
Google rival.

That settlement money ought to go directly to funding EU startups. Instead it
will likely make its way into CAP agricultural subsidies. The Common
Agricultural Policy is about 35% of the entire EU budget despite supporting an
industry that that is just 1.6% of EU GDP. It’s clear that the EU prioritizes
some industries over others and then they wring their hands when American tech
becomes ubiquitous.

~~~
gpderetta
Except that Google is not a shopping service. Using a dominant position in one
market to acquire one in a different market is not allowed.

~~~
mythz
They're returning relevant information Customers are searching for. If it
wasn't relevant or useful people would use a different Service they'd deem
more valuable to them. A major part of Google's simplicity is they provide a
single search box you can use to search for anything, I don't want to have to
go to 100 different sites to search for 100 different things.

~~~
Kurtz79
"They're returning relevant information Customers are searching for."

They were really not.

For every search you assume you will be given the more popular matches, what
they were doing was purposefully bypassing their own algorithm to their
advantage, giving doctored results.

There wouldn't have been any problem if they promoted their service making it
clear it was not part of the search results.

EDIT: For a counterexample, google "flights price compare".

You will be shown a small form at the top from which you can use their own
service.

It is clearly separated from the search results, which show the actual most
popular websites for flight comparison.

~~~
euyyn
> what they were doing was purposefully bypassing their own algorithm to their
> advantage, giving doctored results

Where did you get this from?

~~~
Kurtz79
"Google has systematically given prominent placement to its own comparison
shopping service: when a consumer enters a query into the Google search engine
in relation to which Google's comparison shopping service wants to show
results, these are displayed at or near the top of the search results.

Google has demoted rival comparison shopping services in its search results:
rival comparison shopping services appear in Google's search results on the
basis of Google's generic search algorithms. Google has included a number of
criteria in these algorithms, as a result of which rival comparison shopping
services are demoted. Evidence shows that even the most highly ranked rival
service appears on average only on page four of Google's search results, and
others appear even further down. Google's own comparison shopping service is
not subject to Google's generic search algorithms, including such demotions."

~~~
euyyn
From this sentence?

> Google has included a number of criteria in these algorithms, as a result of
> which rival comparison shopping services are demoted.

Sounds like a jump to conclude they were doctoring results from "they modify
their ranking algorithms".

~~~
gpderetta
did you miss:

" Evidence shows that even the most highly ranked rival service appears on
average only on page four of Google's search results, and others appear even
further down. Google's own comparison shopping service is not subject to
Google's generic search algorithms, including such demotions."

~~~
euyyn
I didn't. "Doctoring results" sounds to me like modifying the ranking of
organic results to demote those services, which is not what that sentence says
either.

------
sguav

      Google's flagship product is the Google search engine, 
      which provides search results to consumers, 
      who pay for the service with their data.
    

anyone else finding the plainness of that last sentence to be staggering? ...

~~~
torrent-of-ions
EU citizens should be proud to have representatives that understand this kind
of technology. I wish I could say the same here in the UK.

~~~
jolic
This is part of a whole debate which you find by searching for "personal data
as counter-performance". For example:

> The German Minister for Interior, Thomas de Maizière, has voiced many of the
> concerns of Member States over the concept of “private ownership of data”
> and the risk this might entail for consumer privacy. Minister de Maiziere
> cautions, “If I can sell ‘my’ data, there is a danger of privacy being up
> for sale. Then at some point, only the wealthy will be able to afford to opt
> out, while the economically weaker are effectively forced to put ‘their’
> data up for sale”. The DCD proposal also conflicts with the rights and
> remedies detailed in the UK’s Consumer Rights Act, which become invalidated
> when consumers exchange personal data in return for access to digital
> content. While the UK government has stated that it has “no fundamental
> objection” to applying these rights to situations where consumers exchange
> personal data for access to ‘free’ digital content, it has also said these
> rights could “unduly inhibit” that “very innovative business model”. Most
> recently, Giovanni Buttarelli (EDPS) published an Opinion on the
> Commission’s proposal, warning that “individuals should not be required to
> disclose personal data in ‘payment’ for an online service”.

[https://cdt.org/blog/ec-proposal-to-pay-with-personal-
data-c...](https://cdt.org/blog/ec-proposal-to-pay-with-personal-data-could-
undermine-privacy-and-harm-the-online-ecosystem/)

------
jordonwii
Google posted a response blog post: [https://www.blog.google/topics/google-
europe/european-commis...](https://www.blog.google/topics/google-
europe/european-commission-decision-shopping-google-story/)

It's mostly just fluff, but they do make a good point about the role of Amazon
and eBay in product searches. I remember one of the early criticisms of the EU
in this case being that they defined the "market" to exclude Amazon and eBay.
Anyone know what the EUs reasoning for that is?

~~~
amelius
From Google's piece:

> When you shop online, you want to find the products you’re looking for
> quickly and easily. And advertisers want to promote those same products.
> That's why Google shows shopping ads, connecting our users with thousands of
> advertisers, large and small, in ways that are useful for both.

The problem is that when you are shopping for something, you _don 't_ want
advertisers to be influencing what you see in search results. You generally
want the best match to your search, not the product with the biggest
advertisement budget behind it.

By upranking others, Google is benefiting themselves, and doing the consumer a
disservice. This is what they should be fined for.

But they have a point about Amazon and others doing basically similar things.

~~~
cwills
> The problem is that when you are shopping for something, you don't want
> advertisers to be influencing what you see in search results. You generally
> want the best match to your search, not the product with the biggest
> advertisement budget behind it.

So they should remove advertising from google search results altogether?

Like saying TV networks shouldn't put ads/product-placements in their shows
because their viewers are only interested in the shows/content.

~~~
amelius
I think you should re-read those two sentences I quoted above. Google is
conflating two issues that are conflicting.

------
ruiramos
Not sure I get the logic here. Will they be fined next for showing the Google
Maps embed (and street view) when you search for places nearby? What's the
difference?

~~~
kuschku
That's another case that's being worked on.

The preferred solution of the EU would be that there would be a standardized
API between search engines and map providers, shopping providers, etc, and you
could simply choose which map provider you'd want, and that'd be shown in
every search engine.

This is still being discussed, of course, as no solution has been found yet,
but in general the idea is based on Android's Intent system, where this
concept works quite well.

~~~
charlesdm
That sounds horrible though. Another abomination in the making. The effort to
align all those map providers is probably quite significant. Such a massive
waste of efforts and engineering time.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I don't think so. Google is actually in a perfect position to do that. They
could just unilaterally announce they'll support other map providers if they
conform to a specified Google API, and guess what, map providers _will_ do it,
forced simply by power of competition.

------
tripzilch
"Market dominance is, as such, not illegal under EU antitrust rules. However,
_dominant companies have a special responsibility_ not to abuse their powerful
market position by restricting competition, either in the market where they
are dominant or in separate markets." (emphasis added)

I couldn't have said it better myself. That is how to do it.

------
Tomis02
Google giving an advantage to its shopping service is peanuts. The way Chrome
was promoted (not only through search, but other Google services as well) is
the real abuse.

~~~
jcranberry
If that's the case then they way Microsoft promoted IE before Chrome was the
work of Satan himself.

~~~
camus2
Microsoft got hit with a huge fine because of IE. The reason Safari got off
the hook eludes me, maybe because Apple doesn't have a monopoly on computer
OS.

~~~
M2Ys4U
That's exactly the reason. Microsoft were dominant, Apple wasn't.

------
captainmuon
A maybe bigger damage is that I don't trust Google's search results for
product recommendations anymore. It used to be (when product search was still
new), that you could search for something, "barbecue grill", "best graphics
card", and the first few results gave you a good overview of the market. Now,
it is almost worthless, as the results are determined by commercial interests,
not the popularity of the products. And this is not even considering the point
of this fine, the highlighted "product search" results, I'm just talking about
the "organic" results.

Oddly, I've found Amazon's rankings for many product categories (not for all)
to be very good.

------
MarkMc
The thing is, Google is not just a search engine - it's also a command line
interpreter. When I type "translate goodnight to french" or "coca cola stock
price" I don't want a list of web pages - I want a single, authorative answer.

~~~
tripzilch
Well IMO, with authority comes even _more_ responsibility than market
dominance.

------
Ensorceled
The stark dichotomy between the main two views expressed in the commentary is
almost breathtaking.

I shouldn't be surprised that so many people support Google using their near
monopoly on search to crush their subsidiary's (sibling's ?) competitors in
other spheres; after all, I saw people support IBM and Microsoft when they
were up to similar shenanigans.

------
interfixus
Please enlighten me: What kind of monopoly would that be? Much as I detest an
awful lot of Google, I have never once been - and know of noone else who has
ever been - forced to use their search against my will. In fact, I get along
fine without it, as well as without their analytics and their browser and
their cloud stuff, excepting of course that I am often forced to correspond
with gmail addresses.

~~~
calcifer
Google holding a dominant position or a monopoly on search is not by itself
illegal. However, using _that_ position to gain entry in a different market
(shopping, in this case) is considered anti-competitive and hence illegal.

~~~
interfixus
No, I realise that. My question is _how_ are they supposed to hold a monoply
or dominance, when there is _nothing_ but preference or lazyness stopping
anyone from switching to a competing service?

~~~
mattmanser
I suggest you read the wiki article[1], it's actually very good at answering
your question. The whole article is worth reading, not just the section I
linked answering your specific question.

Dominance is reflected by the reality of market share, not by whether or not
someone could theoretically switch search engine. In the EU they have a very
dominant position (95% I think?).

It's no different from saying MS had an effective monopoly/dominance in the
2000s, even though you could theoretically install Linux.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law#Dominance_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law#Dominance_and_monopoly)

~~~
interfixus
_It 's no different from saying MS had an effective monopoly/dominance in the
2000s, even though you could theoretically install Linux_

I not only could, I most certainly did.

The situation was different, though. Microsoft Windows had a kind of real
monoply, since it was - and is - difficult to find a retail pc without the
damned thing preinstalled and included in the price. No such mechanism exists
concerning Google, as long as we politely keep Android out of the picture.

Mind you, my position back then was more or less the same with regard to EU vs
MS as it is today, with Google taking over: I dislike both companies. I very
much more intensely dislike the monolithic and terrifying EU throwing its
weight around.

~~~
kazen44
I very much more intensely dislike the monolithic and terrifying EU throwing
its weight around.

why do you find the EU terrifying? (also, the EU is not exactly monolithic
considering it is not a single entity in many areas, but that is another point
entirely).

------
patrickaljord
I wonder if that's payback for the US gov fining VW so hard:

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/04/21/volkswa...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/04/21/volkswagen-
diesel-scandal-hearing/100739290/)

It's almost the same amount, US$2.8B. It's like the EU telling the US "F with
our corporations and we'll F with yours".

~~~
distances
That's a very cynical view. As an European citizen I expect my representatives
not to engage in such childish schemes even if it's about considerable sums.

I think the provided explanation is clear and the punishment reasonable.

~~~
dustinmoris
Are you sure? This is the company who initiated the lawsuit:
[http://www.foundem.co.uk/](http://www.foundem.co.uk/)

By looking at the website do you think they were disadvantaged in Google
search because of Google's monopoly or perhaps for MANY other reasons? I mean
it doesn't even render on mobile...

~~~
jazoom
I guess it's stuck in 2008 because they've made no money since then?

~~~
ferongr
I doubt it. We have a price aggregator (skroutz.gr) here in Greece that people
prefer because it's actually useful. The above site doesn't look like that.

~~~
jazoom
It was kind of a joke in reference to the article. I also run an Australian
price aggregator and it doesn't look like that:
[https://pricehipster.com](https://pricehipster.com)

------
codeproject
I beg everyone answer my question. The anti-trust laws are originated from
USA. The anti-monopolies rules are much harsher in US than those of Europe.
Why did not federal government pick this up? Since a lot of the companies that
are disadvantaged by this Google practice are Us companies. Also I have to
agree that this ruling is tough but fair. And the writing is very concise by
easy to understand. it is good writing no matter you like the ruling or not.

~~~
tyingq
The FTC did investigate Google for this exact same thing, and the
investigators recommended action be taken.

[http://graphics.wsj.com/google-ftc-report/](http://graphics.wsj.com/google-
ftc-report/)

 _" Staff concludes that Google's conduct has resulted - and will result - in
real harm to consumers and to innovation in the online search and advertising
markets. Google has strengthened its monopolies over search and search
advertising through anticompetitive means..."_

It went nowhere though:

 _" The staff recommended bringing a lawsuit challenging certain Google
practices. The Commission ultimately voted, 5-0, not to bring charges against
Google."_

------
currysausage
I tend to agree with the underlying judgment, yet the record-breaking fine
seems disproportionate to the debatable degree of wrongdoing, compared to the
Intel case, where the (obviously reprehensible) extortion of distributors etc.
only led to a fine of about €1.06B.

~~~
ginko
I'd say the problem isn't so much that Google's fine is too high, but that
Intel's fine was too low.

~~~
eeZah7Ux
They are both really low.

~~~
jazoom
Apparently both are less than a third of the maximum penalty.

------
throwawaymanbot
What is annoying about this all, is that the EU picks on tech companies a lot.
They seem to do absolutely NOTHING about the financial houses, that got away
with an awful lot during the greatest financial crisis the world has ever
seen, as an example.

It would be much better for consumers if the EU applied their fines to more
"dangerous to society" type outfits, that can actually do and have done
immense damage to economies not just in the EU, but the US and rest of the
world.

The EU should apply consumer concern to the banking/finance sector in equal
measure as they do with Tech firms. After all, Google cannot crash a society,
But the Banking/financial sector can and has done.

~~~
kazen44
the problem with fining financial structures is that the eurozone at the
moment has no common fiscal policy and no framework to do these kind of
financial crimes efficiently.

Although there is far more support to integrate more fiscal policy across the
eurozone (as expressed by both macron, merkel and some minor other EU
nations), the legislation simply isn't their yet.

~~~
throwawaymanbot
You are right, But I imagine thats by lobbyist design. If there was the will
to investigate, it would happen easily.

Its odd how Tech which changes my browser search gets heavy regulation EU
wide, but not fiscal items, where a currency is shared EU wide.

------
forthefuture
Capitalism is like a competition that when you win you don't ever get to play
again.

~~~
diggan
It's more like a game where others should have the chance to win at one point,
just like you did.

~~~
vixen99
Europeans could always use one of the other (European?) search engines if so
they wished. [http://searchengineland.com/alternatives-to-google-in-
europe...](http://searchengineland.com/alternatives-to-google-in-europe-50425)

~~~
ionised
Or Google could follow the rules of the countries in which they operate.

~~~
ferongr
Please quote the rule that Google broke. In all 28 EU countries.

~~~
ionised
It's in the headline.

 _Antitrust: Commission fines Google €2.42 billion for abusing dominance as
search engine by giving illegal advantage to own comparison shopping service_

Antitrust rules. The EU decided they broke them. Whether you think they did or
didn't is irrelevant.

------
thg
I wonder how many competitors and established providers were driven out of the
market because of Google's practice.

This fine isn't nearly enough, as Google will have earned much more than that
and stands to earn a lot more in the future, simply because they used their
overwhelming market share to kill off competitors. They'll just do it again
and again because in the long term it profits them way more than playing fair.

------
omnimus
It might be very hard for business minded rich hacker news crowd to swallow
but i think many EU citizens believe in regulations. It is not like US.

On one hand google can do whatever they want because its their service and
they don't force anyone to go there.

On the other hand they have big monopoly so people can't really go anywhere
else (they don't know better) - they are not really paying taxes in most of
the EU countries and many times don't even comply with local laws because EU
is just one big thing for them - not individual states.

Let's not forget it is Google who is playing on EU ballpark - not the other
way around.

By the way - does anyone still believe that Google / Facebook or even the
Internet are not utility? It seems it a lot like water/electricity/roads but
for information.

------
wyager
What would Google have to do to ignore this fine? If they cut any physical
presence in the EU, would the EC have any way to enforce this fine?

Put another way, if the EU tried to take money from some random e.g. American
or Japanese company without a physical presence in the EU, what channels could
the EU use to twist their arm across national boundaries?

Somewhat related, there could be good money in providing an explicitly non-
hostile legal environment for companies, where they won't get in trouble for
e.g. promoting their own services or offering services for free [1].

[1]: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/feb/03/google-
fi...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/feb/03/google-fined-france-
maps-free)

~~~
pjc50
Google could remove any presence they had in the EU, at huge expense (closing
Google Dublin, abandoning all EU revenue); but that would also remove their
ability to use Ireland and the Netherlands as tax havens. They'd have to
submit to the US tax system instead.

~~~
wav-part
Being exposed to EC insanity makes Ireland, Netherland makes less appealing
now. However there are many more to choose from eg Singapore.

> _abandoning all EU revenue_

How ? A corp does not have to exist in EU to recieve payments from EU.

> _They 'd have to submit to the US tax system instead._

For such tax structring to work, Google just need one non-US IP holding
jurisdiction.

So they can cut off physical/legal tie from EU, and they should.

------
lucozade
This is going to sound a bit conspiracy theory but here goes...

I was looking at the highlights of the EU competition commission[0]. Is it
just me or is there a theme (with a few exceptions) that runs something like:

    
    
       + Large US company XXX gets anti-trust fine. 
       + EU company gets state aid approved.
       + rinse and repeat
    

Maybe it's just a coincidence but I wonder what the P&L for the Competition
Commission looks like given that fines go to the EU not to the aggrieved
parties.

As an EU citizen, it's nice that the Commission is working hard to reduce my
tax bill but I do wonder if this is entirely neutral.

[0]
[http://ec.europa.eu/competition/news_en.html](http://ec.europa.eu/competition/news_en.html)

~~~
troisx
Considering how much tax dodging the US companies engage in, I'm not sure that
would be unfair if it was true.

~~~
omnimus
Exactly.

Many opinions here are the "market will solve everything" american way. But
what many people fail to mention is how american corps avoid taxes. In my
country fb and google are main online services with milions customers yet they
pay no taxes.

Its amazing what you can do when you are 2big2fail

~~~
lossolo
> "market will solve everything" american way

This got us 2008 financial crisis, deregulations were the main reason. You
need to add greed to every equation you make and then you get different
results.

------
clarry
Promoting your own product above competitors' is ok unless you're big. Ok, I
get it. But I don't agree with it.

~~~
nothrabannosir
Controversial way to look at this, but surprisingly close to the truth:
markets exist for the people. Companies have only one purpose: to serve the
people. Their profits are merely incidental. Any type of regulation (or lack
thereof) can be traced back to this rule.

Freedoms exist only to let companies thrive insofar as that then lets them
sell goods that benefit the people. Once that stops, the freedoms stop.

I'm being slightly dry cut, but this is a good rule of thumb when looking at
society. It's easy to forget about the bigger picture and think that companies
have any type of inherent right to exist. They don't. They're here for us. Of
course, theory vs practice, yada yada. but again: rule of thumb for
regulations.

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
> Companies have only one purpose: to serve the people.

That seems completely backwards. Governments have only one purpose—to serve
the people.

Companies have only one purpose—to serve its shareholders. Of course, purely
pursuing this purpose can lead to perverse outcomes so we have regulation to
keep it in check.

> Companies [don't] have any type of inherent right to exist

Huh? In so far as individuals have a right to engage in trade and commerce,
and in so far as they have a right to engage in this in coordination with
other individuals, companies do have a right to exist.

~~~
Dirlewanger
>companies do have a right to exist.

I hate to split hairs, but no, they don't. Companies are just an arbitrary
legal entity.

------
petre
It's just a covert trade war with the US. The US fines VW, then the EU fines
Google and Facebook and maybe Apple too. I don't like Google's practices or
their ad network but this is just about taxes and clawing back some money
after Google used their Ireland subsidiary and banks in the Caymans to avoid
paying some taxes in the EU. In the UK they got a slap on the back last year -
some 130M pounds in back taxes.

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/22/google-
ag...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/22/google-agrees-to-
pay-hmrc-130m-in-back-taxes)

------
gressquel
I wish they would add an additional 1 billion fine for AMP.

~~~
nkkollaw
From what I read, AMP is a subset of HTML to make pages load faster and
deliver ads more efficiently (which might appeal to content creators).

I assume that Google is attempting to make devs start using a proprietary
technology instead of the well-established HTML standard, or:

\- somehow lock everyone in with the format

\- force people to switch to Chrome since it would run those pages better

\- force other browsers to implement the technology (until they sneak in a
patented technology once AMP is popular?)

Where can I read a good article about why AMP is bad?

~~~
helb
This might be worth reading: [https://www.alexkras.com/i-decided-to-disable-
amp-on-my-site...](https://www.alexkras.com/i-decided-to-disable-amp-on-my-
site/) (on HN yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14635013](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14635013))

~~~
baybal2
Most importantly, it walls off a lion share of few remaining competing ad
publishing platforms

------
mrleiter
If they do not comply within 90 days, they can be fined with 5% of the daily
average revenue of Alphabet, Inc.

For FY16, they had a revenue of approx. $90.27b, that leaves a fine of approx.
$12.3m.

*edit: forgot to divide by 365 (days). I apologise.

~~~
nickserv
Meaning that the fine is about half of what they make in a day. A slap on the
wrist.

~~~
uhnuhnuhn
The fine is 5% of daily Alphabet revenues, _per day_.

------
redm
This was rumored to be coming for some time. The most interesting part to me:
"Vestager said the EU might also need to take a closer look at Google’s
behavior concerning maps, travel and restaurant reviews."

~~~
speeq
So we'll just have a worse search experience here. Thanks EU..

------
vegancap
The EU are verging on gangsterism, extorting businesses for increasingly
specious violations and terms. Of course Google favour their affiliates on
THEIR web services, their property.

~~~
matthewmacleod
I have absolutely no framework for understanding this attitude.

I've got to assume you're aware of things like unfair competition, antitrust
laws, market distortions and so on. The idea is that a disproportionately
influential market participant can cause the market to become less free by
virtue of inhibiting competition – competition being a vital part of a free
market.

Rules against abusing a dominant market position are there specifically to try
and prevent abuse from happening.

I could understand the reasonableness of arguing about the specifics of
Google's market dominance or the degree to which this activity was a problem.
But "increasingly specious violations and terms" and "absolutely sickening"
seem to suggest you haven't really considered the validity of such rules.

~~~
vegancap
Unless I've misunderstood what the fine was for. Fining a private business
€2.4bn for promoting its own affiliates over other networks, how is that in
any way an abnormal business practice? I'm not trying to be controversial, I
just don't understand how that warrants such a hefty fine.

~~~
matthewmacleod
It's because there are additional regulatory requirements on businesses that
have disproportionate market influence.

Promoting your own services in general is fine. But when a huge, huge majority
of the market uses your service for discovery, your decision to promote your
own services over competitors' damages competition in the market — users end
up with less choice in practice, even though they could theoretically switch
to another service.

Those rules exist to try and prevent this sort of abuse happening.

------
christmm
Who receives the fine, and is it disbursed in some way to the citizens of EU
member states?

~~~
lucozade
According to this [0], which was the press release for Intel's fine, it gets
taken off the EU central budget so the member states pay less net. The EU
budget is ~145bn EUR I believe.

[0] [http://europa.eu/rapid/press-
release_MEMO-09-235_en.htm?loca...](http://europa.eu/rapid/press-
release_MEMO-09-235_en.htm?locale=en)

------
trevos
Google's dominance is so complete that for years even their top browser
competitor, Firefox, came preset to use an omnibox with Google as the default
search engine, meaning that everything one typed into the browser was sent to
Google, even if not actually a Google search.

This integration with Google is pervasive in Firefox; there are dozens of
settings built into the browser that send information to various Google
services. Yes, it's possible to change all of them, but probably less than
0.001% of users will do that. This is why it's not possible to take Firefox's
claim that they are pro-privacy seriously.

~~~
Karunamon
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Firefox doesn't have a proper omnibox. It has an
explicitly split search and URL field.

------
Jerry2
Why is this story being flagged so much? It's the biggest news of the day!

------
MichaelBurge
I assume Google only needs to show pages complying with this order for
requests originating from the EU, so the rest of us shouldn't see any
difference from the European Protectorates' order.

~~~
jazoom
Except maybe an international precedent will be scary enough for Google not to
risk it.

------
oyvey
Visting google is 100% voloutary and there are alternatives. The EU should not
interfere, its unnecessary and I think its an abuse of power from their side.

~~~
yladiz
> Using Internet Explorer is 100% voloutary and there are alternatives. The US
> government should not interfere, its unnecessary and I think its an abuse of
> power from their side.

~~~
justin66
Hopefully you realize that a lot of people (in the US and elsewhere) actually
felt that way, and that simply posting this does not constitute a very
thoughtful rebuttal.

The application of antitrust law (in the US and elsewhere) tends to be rather
controversial. Which is why it's interesting...

~~~
yladiz
I know, my implicit argument is that this specific argument isn't really valid
because these circumstances have happened before and I don't believe the
decision against Microsoft is controversial in 2017. I do believe that
something like Google, while obviously having alternatives, is often _the_
place people search, so it is in many ways a monopoly and should be heavily
scrutinized to ensure it's not using its position for its own gain at the
expense of its competitors. I don't know anyone who really uses Bing, and I
only use DuckDuckGo because I don't prefer to be in the Google ecosystem, but
I am not most people.

~~~
justin66
> I don't believe the decision against Microsoft is controversial in 2017.

Well, in one sense that's obviously true: it's no longer a source of
controversy. On the other hand, if there is a reason you believe the people
who argued against the Microsoft antitrust action - or aspects thereof - in
the late nineties would retract their opposition today, I wonder what it is.
More to the point, I wonder if you have read any legal scholarship or punditry
to the effect of "I was wrong, the Microsoft antitrust case was correctly
decided." I don't recall ever seeing anything like that, and I'm interested in
this stuff.

(plenty of us thought bundling IE was not an abuse of monopoly power twenty
years ago, and still feel that way today)

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
Add my name to the list of people that aren't entirely convinced that bundling
IE was a abuse of monopoly power.

------
dingo_bat
This is like forcing itunes to show movie results from prime video.

~~~
kbart
No. The key difference is that iTunes owns the rights to the contest it
promotes via some kind of author-distributor agreement, so all the contest is
'theirs'. Google search, on the other hand, crawls the whole web, but put
results by Google Shopping on top and punishes others, that have nothing to do
with Google nor gave them an explicit permission to use _their_ content. This
creates an illusion that Google Shopping products are somehow better.

------
ridewinter
Let's say Spotify began including a music recognition feature similar to
Shazam. That would be really useful! Would this decision force Spotify to not
include the feature because they have a monopoly on music streaming and it
would force Shazam out of business? That just seems plain wrong.

~~~
M2Ys4U
Does Spotify have a _dominant_ market position? They're big, for sure, but I
would hardly call them "dominant".

------
soufron
My point of view? Good or bad, there is more to come:
[https://medium.com/@soufron/eu-commission-fines-
google-2-42-...](https://medium.com/@soufron/eu-commission-fines-
google-2-42-billion-and-there-might-be-more-to-come-664999fd6277)

------
msurekci
Does anyone know where the €2.42B will be used?

Will it be used to compensate the rival companies? Will it be used to
compensate European consumers? (And most importantly, it denied European
consumers a genuine choice of services and the full benefits of innovation)

~~~
TimonKnigge
> Fines are paid into the Community budget and therefore help to finance the
> European Union and reduce the tax burden on individuals.

[https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/879647936686305281](https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/879647936686305281)

------
jondubois
I think this makes sense.

The EU has to defend its producers as much as it defends its consumers.

I wouldn't say that the EU is doing this at the expense of its consumers
because I don't think that consumers actually get a better deal because this
feature of Google.

Google's initiative only serves to narrow down the options for consumers and
funnel them to where Google wants them to go.

Google's business is to steal people's free will and sell it to corporations.

To be fair, I don't think it's much different from what all the other
corporations are doing. All advertising ought to be taxed.

------
bengalister
Whether it is fair or not, I can't help but think it has something to do with
the huge penalties European banks were sentenced to pay to the US treasury
department in the last few years...

------
AndrewKemendo
The larger existential question that this should raise for most people is
this:

Do you have more power to improve your life over the long term in your role as
an individual consumer or an individual voter?

If you take the stance that the government is looking out for your interests
better than Google is, then by default you must be arguing one of two things:

1\. Your act of voting (or political action) is positively correlated to your
desires.

or

2\. The (collective) Government knows what's better for you than Google could
and is implementing that to your benefit.

I find either argument unsubstantiated.

~~~
Analemma_
I don't see any evidence that my purchasing actions are positivity correlated
to my desires either.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
Just so I interpret this correctly, are you saying that you purchase things
you don't want?

~~~
Analemma_
What I mean is I don't see my buying habits having any larger of an impact on
the behavior of corporations than my voting habits do on the behavior of the
government. The libertarian conviction that businesses will change their
behavior to attract my dollars never seemed to have any empirical footing to
me.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
I think the empirical footing is simply seeing how companies change their
businesses to adjust to consumer demands. All of the major players have shown
time and time again that they adjust their products based on user behavior.
The entire Lean method and deploy-measure-iterate-deploy cycle, is predicated
on a feedback loop between users and products.

~~~
Analemma_
In your original post, you said:

> If you take the stance that the government is looking out for your interests
> better than Google is...

making a clear implicit counterclaim that Google is looking out for my
interests better than the government. But then you say this:

> The entire Lean method and deploy-measure-iterate-deploy cycle, is
> predicated on a feedback loop between users and products.

As someone who has done a lot of A/B testing over the course of their career,
I can say with authority that this argument is completely bogus, to the point
that I'm having trouble believing you're making it in good faith. A/B testing
rarely has anything to do with matching the product to customer's stated
preferences or looking out for their best interests. It's almost always about
exploiting various quirks of psychology to increase engagement or spending, in
the manner of casinos.

In fact, I'm willing to wager that A/B testing, as it's done today, probably
anti-optimizes the product from the perspective of the user's (or society's)
best interests (best example: Facebook and the social bubble effect, and how
outrage-inducting fake news gets more clicks and engagement than nuanced real
stuff)

Contrast this with the history of how well companies respond to consumer's
stated preferences. A clear majority of people, when polled, say they want
less corporate welfare, companies that treat the environment better,
reasonable labor protections, etc.. None of these have happened to any
significant degree, unless their hand was forced by (bitterly opposed)
regulation.

Now, this is mostly people's own fault, because their spending habits do not
match their stated preferences, and businesses follow revealed preference. But
that's been my point all along: businesses cannot be trusted satisfy stated
preferences. And I'm the rare consumer who _does_ try to put my money where my
mouth is, and my preferences still never translate into large-scale change.
That's what I mean when I say there's no empirical footing for the claim that
businesses can be trusted to look out for my interests.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
_A /B testing rarely has anything to do with matching the product to
customer's stated preferences or looking out for their best interests._

Bull, it's explicitly about figuring out what people want to do. You can argue
all day long that this can be exploited, but in the end you aren't going to
take an action you don't want to without coercion. If I show you a delivery
donut ad a 1AM, because you've proven 90% more likely to impulse buy a donut
at 1AM and then you do it, how is that not directly correlating to your
interests? Conversely if I show you a gym ad at 8AM on Tuesday because I know
that's when you get out of the meeting with the fit [insert gender] person at
work you've always wanted to ask out on a date, how is that not directly in
your interests?

 _businesses follow revealed preference_

Yes exactly, stated preferences are worthless. Revealed preferences are
priceless. The amount of people who say one thing and do another approaches
100%.

 _That 's what I mean when I say there's no empirical footing for the claim
that businesses can be trusted to look out for my interests._

You decide what your interests are by your actions. If I see your actions and
then give you more of those, by definition I am looking out for your
interests.

I think what you are trying to say is:

"People make terrible decisions and it's up to the government to prevent
companies from letting you make those terrible decisions."

In which case, you're implicitly arguing that people make better voting
decisions than purchasing decisions and that voting decisions better reflect
their _true_ preferences. A silly idea if there ever was one. I don't think
this needs a reference in 2017.

------
johnking
As someone who is cautious about the prospect of Amazon and other large
retailers completely dominating the e-commerce space, this ruling worries me a
bit.

As things stand, the Google Shopping results allow smaller, independent
e-commerce stores to reach the top of Google's search results.

Take this functionality away, and we risk the top search results being a
combination of Amazon + other large retailers for the majority of e-commerce
related searches.

------
oever
To avoid market domination, companies should pay a percentage X of their
profit as taxes. X is the average market share of the company in the last five
years.

------
grondilu
Maybe it's time Google enters politics, gains control of the US army somehow,
and then threatens to invade Europe if they ever bother them again.

~~~
MrZongle2
_" Maybe it's time Google enters politics..."_

I think we're long past that point:
[https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-
close...](https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close-
relationship-with-the-obama-white-house-in-two-charts/)

~~~
grondilu
Great. Just two more steps then :)

------
argo_
"As a result, Google's comparison shopping service is much more visible to
consumers in Google's search results."

Well, that makes sense.

------
rf15
I wish this would actually do something, though I am happy that another
verdict has been passed.

(cue "the market will regulate itself")

------
jlebrech
what's stopping google from shutting up shop in the EU. would they have to
block EU access?

how much revenue do they make from EU clients?

~~~
flexie
Business is what is stopping Google from not servicing Europe. Google makes
huge part of its profit on search in Europe and pays almost no tax in Europe.

If Google stopped servicing Europe, one or more European competitors would
emerge in days or weeks and Google's dominance would be threatened worldwide
within months. It would be a completely suicidal move.

~~~
cJ0th
Yeah, it seems "search" isn't as untouchable as it used to be. Qwant, for
instance, may not be a 100% there but it is quite good.

[https://www.qwant.com/](https://www.qwant.com/)

~~~
zepto
What are you taking about? Any Google Search competitor needs to be seriously
better than google in order to stand a chance, ‘not 100% there’ is equivalent
to not there at all.

Moreover Qwant is just bing search results repackaged.

~~~
cJ0th
> Moreover Qwant is just bing search results repackaged.

Not in France and Germany

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwant#Criticism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwant#Criticism)

------
duke360
while i disagree with EU and i think that goole has full right of sort things
inthe way it wants, i also recognize that the "don't be evil" motto are just
bullshits

google has the bad habit to sell itself as the saviour, while it is just
making its own interests like anyone else... do not hide google...

------
icetoad
Just once, I want a company being fined to just shut off service to the
countries trying to fine them....

~~~
CobrastanJorji
It's not a 100% match, but some years back Spain came up with a system where
Google News would be required to pay money to the news sites they linked to.
Google responded by simply turning off Google News in Spain, which immediately
cost Spanish news sites to lose a sizable percentage of traffic and millions
of dollars in revenue: [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/new-study-
shows-...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/new-study-shows-spains-
google-tax-has-been-a-disaster-for-publishers/)

~~~
icetoad
awesome.... doesn't appear they did anything to rectify the service
disconnect, nor any of the other Spanish site that shutdown as a result.

------
ABCLAW
Seems like a lot of non-lawyers are learning how competition law works and
very upset that it also applies to tech. This thread, unfortunately, contains
a very low-level discussion regarding what's going on because it is premised
upon whether or not competition law has merit in the first place, rather than
whether or not it should apply in this specific instance. This is
understandable, because most people here don't actually understand the
competition framework or how its various moving parts work, either in
principle or in practice.

Google has enough lawyers to know that its internal policy was at risk of
triggering competition oversight. If it didn't, it has a horrendously inept
legal and regulatory risk compliance structure in place.

As a point, in competition cases, companies will generally try to bite off
more than they know the regulators will allow, then use that action to shift
the goalposts to negotiate better boundaries for their practices or
acquisitions than they would have otherwise obtained.[1]

This is what Google has done. Only most people don't see it because their main
competitive advantage hasn't' been in easily analysed assets like high-margin
factories or efficient logistics operations. Our language of business is not
well structured for discussing the competitive advantage Google has acquired
by repeatedly leveraging their search engine into other markets. So we ignore
it.

Contrary to what people are saying, it is very clear where the 'line' was
crossed from the competition perspective. Google has crossed that line
multiple times in the past and gotten away free. It is more shocking, from a
competition perspective, that they haven't been hit in the past.

___

[1] To explain the footnoted paragraph further: companies will offer to buy
competitors that would bring it well past the market dominance high-water mark
(different countries' legislation use different terminology to denote this
point, but as a rule of thumb when you hit 40-50% of a given market,
competition concerns arise). Companies then apply for regulator blessing for
the entire acquisition knowing they won't get it. The hope is that the
regulator will allow them to try to and keep all of the high-margin, high-
value 'crown jewels' and make a show of disposing of underperforming assets.
Doing this allows regulators the ability to say they exercised effective
oversight, while the company is able to point to their balance sheet's
performance over their competitors. Obtaining this advantage then allows them
to raise at lower rates and fund activities to buy market share then rely on
organic growth (which regulators don't take action against) to crush their
opponents. This is a very standard market consolidation playbook for a player
in the market.

------
throwawaymanbot
If they like google, they will love Amazon in the next few years!

------
szczepano
Funny fact below the article is that 2 contacts - that are in fact British
citizens. Ricardo CARDOSO (+32 2 298 01 00)
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricardocardosodeandrade/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricardocardosodeandrade/)
Yizhou REN (+32 2 299 48 89) [https://www.linkedin.com/in/yizhou-
ren-a2950616/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/yizhou-ren-a2950616/)

Both graduated from same school and both have financial sector background.
Both were working in big UK corporations before their career in EU commission.

~~~
yokisan
They may have studied in the LSE but Yizhou Ren is from Germany, apparently.

------
pyronik
Google helps push big government power and their ability to unilaterally
interfere in markets. The fact it was used against them is poetic.

------
luord
As usual, an anti-trust regulation puts on display the shortcomings of both
capitalism and socialism.

Stifling competition is bad, and it's bad that Google did it.

Trying to meddle in someone's private property and stifling innovation, like
the EU just did, is also bad.

And ultimately some win (competitor companies) and some lose (the people who
preferred the Google results, even if out of convenience).

I see it as a showcase of how we, and thus our economic models, are flawed and
will always be.

------
petre
It's just a covert trade war with the US. The US fines VW, then the EU fines
Google and Facebook and maybe Apple too. I don't like Google's practices or
their ad network but this is just about taxes and clawing back some money
after Google used Ireland and the Caymans to avoid paying some taxes in the
EU. In the UK they got a slap on the back last year - some 300M in back taxes.

~~~
DaiPlusPlus
* The US fined VW fair and square. VW has a large North American business anyway - there is no significant US/EU "trade war". Besides, American car manufacturers like GM are also implicated: [https://electrek.co/2017/05/25/gm-dieselgate-scandal/](https://electrek.co/2017/05/25/gm-dieselgate-scandal/)

* Ireland _is in the EU_ and contributes towards the EU's coffers.

* The EU is also going after VW ( [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/eu-sues-germ...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/eu-sues-germany-and-britain-over-volkswagen-emissions-scandal-a7462936.html) ), but the responsibility in this case lies with individual member-state governments, rather than any single EU organ, and there is evidence that VW carefully gamed the situation so their defeat-devices were technically legal in the EU ( [https://www.ft.com/content/0b9bf1d2-e486-11e6-9645-c9357a758...](https://www.ft.com/content/0b9bf1d2-e486-11e6-9645-c9357a75844a?mhq5j=e1) )

~~~
petre
While I agree with all of your points, we have yet to see GM being fined in
the US. Otherwise VW is probably the worst offender and still getting a pat on
the back in the EU. The EU _plans_ to punish VW since 2015. Rather than do
that, they went after individual member states (backed by taxpayers) for
failing to punish VW.

Ireland gave some big corps special tax deals as it's the case with Apple.
It's also used by big corps to pass earnings through as it had lower corporate
taxes compared to other member states. This is an Irish feature and a flaw in
the tax policies of other EU states, which the EU tried to fix with transfer
taxes.

What I am saying is that the EU is failing to punish VW while being _maybe a
little too harsh_ on US corps. I think we can all agree VW is a much worse
offender than Google: selling cars that poison the air and lie about it vs. a
few search results clearly labelled as sponsored ads up on the first page.

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emilfihlman
This is a) wayyyy too big of a fine

And b) not motivated by customer protection but by greed alone.

This was not a good thing.

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goferito
That money could have gone to continue Firefox OS :(

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pavlakoos
Does it hurt them at all?

~~~
rsp1984
Not the money part of it. Not sure about legal/strategic implications down the
road.

~~~
Atropos
They have 90 days to "stop the abusive practices", basically meaning find a
way to redesign their website - this is what they really care about.

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purpleidea
Why so low? (Not sarcasm)

~~~
pdw
This case was only about Froogle/Google Product Search/Google Shopping.
Separate cases about Android and AdSense are still ongoing.

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subhrm
EU Just create your own search engine ! Height of stupidity .

Glad that Britain is exiting EU .

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rizenfrmtheash
I kind of want google to shut off all services for a week in EU countries. No
search, images, maps, gmail, or android services. I wonder how quickly the eu
will sober up.

~~~
ino
Bing and ddg would fill 90% of that void in two days.

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Kenji
Unjust enrichment of disgusting bureaucrats. In this case, google did nothing
wrong other than display what they want on their own site, and for that they
have to pay their hard earned money to an undemocratic authoritarian
commission. No thanks.

~~~
calcifer
Yeah, no. The fine is not paid to any commission, it goes to the EU budget and
is taken off from the amount member states (hence, citizens) have to pay for
that year.

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dustinmoris
Someone said once something which really describes this well:

The EU hasn't contributed ANYTHING to the internet, but they are the ones who
want to regulate it the most. :(

~~~
kilotaras
> The EU hasn't contributed ANYTHING to the internet

Of top of my head:

1\. WWW was created in CERN, which is funded mostly by EU countries [1]

2\. Linux which accounts for more than 2/3 of web servers was created in
Sweden.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN#Member_states_and_budget](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN#Member_states_and_budget)

~~~
raverbashing
How could you get the country where Linux comes from wrong? (unless that's the
joke)

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dpatru
This is despicable. Google is a private company who cannot force anyone to use
its services. It is successful because consumers and advertisers have chosen
to use its services because it makes their lives better. Google's investors
risked and are risking their own money to build the company in hopes of
earning a return by providing better services than other companies. Now come
government bureaucrats, moral pygmies who live off of taxes coerced from the
citizenry, who have none of their own money at risk, who have no expertise,
presuming to tell Google that they are harming the consumers who are choosing
to use its services. These are despicable little parasites who are doing their
best to extract money from companies who are driving civilization forward. See
also [https://mises.org/library/abolish-antitrust-
laws](https://mises.org/library/abolish-antitrust-laws) for a more detailed
explanation of why antitrust is bad.

~~~
ionised
I feel like you have totally missed the point.

