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Europe Is Going After Google Hard, and Google May Not Win

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Re: Europe Is Going After Google Hard, and Google May Not Win

#31

Post by criley2 »

uola wrote: post #26
criley2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment is troll level? I consider European regulators behavior to be "troll level", asking for the troll tax :) Guess it's all about perspective.

Of course it's about perspective, I just don't think you have a very broad one. That Google didn't come from Europe has little to do with the current situation. Europe doesn't lack innovation at all, in fact the reason that startups aren't very popular is that there are many other interesting engineering companies to work for. Talent flight is not particularly significant, especially with the US visa rules. European…

"The funny thing is of course that a decade ago no one in the US cared about Europe, but now with all the shit going on in the US you constantly see shallow argument how horrible Europe is. I see that as a good sign."

Your entire post is full of the "troll level" ignorance that you claim mine is, but this right here is the ignorant cherry on top.

Thank you for demonstrating that you embody the criticism that you level on others.

P.S. Americans complained about European regulation, inability to compete in less regulated capitalism, laggy adoption of technology, and lack of innovation 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago...

P.S.S If the only reason Google didn't come from Europe is that Google has a giant market to use against competitors, how did Google get to its position? Why didn't the first Google come from Europe? Or Facebook? Or Twitter? Or ANYTHING? It's a chicken/egg problem for you to blame Google's dominance on its size, since it didn't always have this size, and there was ample opportunity prior!

Re: Europe Is Going After Google Hard, and Google May Not Win

#32

Post by cynicalkane »

raverbashing wrote: post #21
criley2 wrote: post #7

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…

> 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 p…

> 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.

There's a fascinating lack of awareness here. These are examples of Americans forced into sub-standard technology by government overregulation. At least the chip cards are being fixed.

Re: Europe Is Going After Google Hard, and Google May Not Win

#33

Post by philippoi »

ythl wrote: post #12
criley2 wrote: post #7

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…

> Is anyone surprised that Google didn't come from Europe, and the next one isn't either? Disruptive/innovative startups require an "ask for forgiveness" mentality, and not a "ask for permission" mentality which Europe tries so hard to cultivate.

The nature of a Competition Commission case often requires more than just disruptive/innovative startup status. That's their starting point in this case as well: with Google's often cited 90% market share of European searches, they're liable to not abuse their dominant position. A disruptive/innovative startup won't attract this kind of attention from the Competition Commission until it has achieved similar monopoly status. It's interesting that even Thiel laid out the playbook for defending the "we're not actually a monopoly position in his 'Zero To One'." Google seems to be taking exactly that defensive tactic as their base. The three billy goats defense.

If you go into the case files, you can see the logic which is central to their findings. They're in no way as general as they're made out to be in a lot of the press on the case. And Google is much less public about the case so it's hard to get a sense of what their perspective is on it.

EU Competition Commission's Google Search case: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/case_details.cf...

Edit: ...and their new case, focusing on AdSense: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/case_details.cf...

Re: Europe Is Going After Google Hard, and Google May Not Win

#34

Post by fhood »

raverbashing wrote: post #21
criley2 wrote: post #7

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…

> 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 p…

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.

Re: Europe Is Going After Google Hard, and Google May Not Win

#35

Post by _of »

cynicalkane wrote: post #32
raverbashing wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 p…

> 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. There's a fascinating lack of awareness here. These are examples of Americans forced into sub-standard technology by government overregulation. At least the chip cards are being fixed.

Checks are the most annoying part of paying my rent in the US. In Europe it was just a few clicks online. Here it sometimes takes two weeks until the landlord clears the check.

Re: Europe Is Going After Google Hard, and Google May Not Win

#36

Post by JoeAltmaier »

_of wrote: post #35
cynicalkane wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. There's a fascinating lack of awareness here. These are examples of Americans forced into sub-standard technology by government overregulation. At least the chip cards are being fixed.

Checks are the most annoying part of paying my rent in the US. In Europe it was just a few clicks online. Here it sometimes takes two weeks until the landlord clears the check.

Dwolla!

Re: Europe Is Going After Google Hard, and Google May Not Win

#37

Post by 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.

Re: Europe Is Going After Google Hard, and Google May Not Win

#38

Post by fhood »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #17
criley2 wrote: post #7

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…

>> "Are Europeans not upset" I'm happy the regulators are not allowing a huge multi-national business to abuse its power. I'm happy that, to some extent, regulators are trying to make sure large foreign tech companies respect my privacy. If that means we lose Google I think you're overestimating how big of a deal that would be. I use DDG for search, iCloud for email/calendar/contacts, Safari as my desktop browser, BB…

Wait you don't use google for searching?!?!?! Or gmail? I am in awe.

Re: Europe Is Going After Google Hard, and Google May Not Win

#39

Post by Aaargh20318 »

criley2 wrote: post #7

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…

> "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?"

European here, the exact opposite actually: we are upset that the US is trying to sneak in less regulation through TTIP and similar deals.

Re: Europe Is Going After Google Hard, and Google May Not Win

#40

Post by getgoingnow »

criley2 wrote: post #7

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…

Just look at this [1] list of the biggest tech/internet companies. They are all from USA and China. The only 2 reasons not all big companies are from USA is (1) Chinese versions are much better (Alibaba vs. Amazon/eBay; Uber vs. Didi) or (2) US websites are banned (Baidu vs. Google; Tencent vs. Facebook).

None of them are or (most likely) will be from EU. Europe has a declining population, too much bureaucracy, hostile business environment and many other problems. This investigation is an attempt to get some money from Google (combined with raid in France & Spain over taxes) and fund the bureaucrats in Brussels.

[1] http://www.statista.com/statistics/277483/market-value-of-th...

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