
Europe Is Going After Google Hard, and Google May Not Win - rufus42
http://www.wired.com/2016/07/europe-going-google-hard-google-may-not-win/
======
criley2
Is anyone surprised that Google didn't come from Europe, and the next one
isn't either?

Good for Europe. Go out there and extract that pound of flesh from the foreign
company and show domestics what a powerful government regulator looks like,
show them that their business is better started in another country.

Is what it is. Hope the tax revenue offsets the lack of innovation and talent
flight.

But I think Google News and Spain demonstrate the reality of this situation,
that regulators are dogs chasing cars who are praying they never catch it.

" In the end, Google in Europe could wind up as a very different thing than
Google at home."

Are Europeans not upset that they're being forced into sub-standard foreign
technology by their government for which they have no superior domestic
alternative, also suppressing domestic innovation as innovators seek greener
regulatory pasture, all in the name of today's tax revenue?

~~~
raverbashing
> Are Europeans not upset that they're being forced into sub-standard foreign
> technology by their government

Oh you're so funny. As opposed to the US where people overpay for sub-standard
local technology?

People in the US still use _cheques_. And they have to pay (a lot) to print
those.

Chip cards? No, let's use our fraud-prone magnetic stripe cards.

It's cheaper for me to call the US using an MVNO from Europe than picking up a
phone and calling the US from within with a pre-paid cell phone there.

Talent flight? Sure let me wait for an H1-B (that you might not get after
all). Meanwhile a non-EU worker visa takes about a month to process (sometimes
less).

~~~
fhood
Wait wut?

First my cheques are free, and the only time I really use them is when
somebody needs by account info on file.

Second I have a chip card and I hate it.

Third, you're right. US telecom blows.

Fourth I hate to break it to you but talent really does flock to the US from
europe and elsewhere and many of our greatest scientists and entrepreneurs are
from abroad. Hell, Elon Musk is South African. That is the result of an
extremely innovation friendly investment community, and the best higher
education (UK is a distant second), in the world.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> Second I have a chip card and I hate it."

Why? A bit more info would be useful.

~~~
doktrin
Probably because it's slightly slower to use than magnetic strips (at least in
the US), and since we're in a transition period you kind of never know whether
a given store supports chip inserts.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Good points but that's not really a problem with the chip and pin tech. The
parents comments sounded like he had a specific issue with that. Regarding
speed I'm not too familiar with magnetic strip cards but don't you have to
sign the receipt? If so that seems like it would take as long as entering a
PIN. Also, do magnetic strips support contactless payments? The chip and PIN
cards in the UK do which makes payments almost instant (up to £30).

~~~
snuxoll
We didn't do Chip+PIN in the US, we did Chip+Sign for everything but debit
cards (which still use signatures in most cases as a lot of stores don't have
support for the US Common Debit AID, yet). No, virtually nobody supports
contactless on cards themselves, if you want that you're stuck with Apple Pay
/ Android Pay / Microsoft Wallet and having to use your phone or watch.

Our EMV rollout in the US was awful, the software running on card terminals is
abysmally slow to authenticate transactions (taking upwards of 15 seconds in
some cases), while traditional magnetic strips took maybe 2 or 3 to authorize.
This is fixable, and multiple vendors in the chain have been providing fixes
that drop the authentication+authorization time back down to the 3 second
window, but it's going to take a while for it to get rolled out now that it's
almost a full year after the big switch.

~~~
k-mcgrady
That sounds pretty terrible. In terms to auth speed we get that occasionally
in very small stores (newsagents) but when you have to type in your PIN most
stores handle it all in a few seconds now. The 15 second auth time was common
here until about 5 years ago. In the last year I've also seen massive
improvements, largely due to stores upgrading terminals to support contactless
payments which I use almost everywhere now. I regularly leave home without my
wallet as I can be quite certain I'll be able to use Apple Pay via the
contactless terminal.

------
ksk
I feel like all large companies run into this wall eventually. The 'head'
loves to talk about welcoming competition and capitalism and all that, but the
'body' acts as-if it hates a level playing field. They tie unrelated products,
predatory pricing, bundle their browser into random installers to trick people
into installing it, pay other companies for preferential treatment, lock you
into their platform, act like a bully, and do everything except letting
individual products succeed or fail on their own merits in a free market.

------
kbwt
As it should be. I wonder why the EU isn't putting more scrutiny on the app
store.

~~~
jshevek
Apple's market share is too low. There's no doubt that the world would be a
better place if we stood up against abuse of power on all fronts, but the laws
as they stand allow apple to abuse their power with impugnity.

------
forrestthewoods
At least these cases seem a little more reasonable than the Microsoft case.
Windows N was the dumbest product ever. No consumer wanted that. No consumer
benefited from it's existence. Complete waste of time and effort.

Eliminating Google's stranglehold on search would be good for consumers I
think. I'm not quite sure about the others. None of the write-ups seem to do a
particularly good job summarizing the complaints. So I can't tell what the
precise complaint is or what the improved consumer situation is speculated to
be.

------
timrichard
"Europe" isn't doing anything of the sort. The EU is. Europe is a continent on
the western part of Eurasia. The EU is a corrupt, anti-democractic bloated
bureaucracy where the wheels are continually greased by the interests and
demands of multi-billion dollar lobbying organisations. It's good to see the
article allude to this in the first paragraph. It's just a shame that it
doesn't come under much scrutiny in general, as it's of huge importance to
people living in Europe in areas under the control of the EU.

------
Shivetya
I am not a fan of the "Right to be forgotten" but I am an even less happy with
the idea that just because they are so good are providing searching that
somehow they aren't allowed to favor their own interests. Are we to treat them
as a utility or such simply because they spent the time and effort to become
so good?

~~~
slazaro
With great power comes great responsibility, right? If you're not operating
ethically and it affects billions of people, I don't think it's out of the
question to expect some accountability for your actions.

------
galfarragem
"Don't be evil." \-- Google, early 2000's [1]

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil)

Edit: Despite the strong HN bias I will keep this comment.

~~~
jswny
Are people just downvoting this because they think Europe is in the wrong?

~~~
viraptor
Mostly because it's known, obvious, and doesn't add to the discussion. We know
it had that idea, and we know what followed. If the OP wants to make an actual
point/statement, then they could do that instead.

