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Does the EU even have the authority to break up Google/Alphabet?
Honestly comes across as EU sour grapes. The "competition chief" should focus on the regulations that have resulted in low investment and slow innovation instead of trying to "regulate" American tech companies.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean like VW being called out in the United States for the diesel scandal was US sour grapes? Really, I'm all for symmetry with stuff like this if that is what it takes to get these giants to at least attempt to comply with the law.
Symmetry was fining Google. The EU fined Google $2.7 billion. What would symmetry look like from the US side if the EU starts demanding Google be broken up? Unfortunately the EU has no massive, powerful technology businesses to demand be broken up.
So?
If it had then most likely there would be a similarly strong push to break up such a company if it misbehaved. At least, I would hope so.
Microsoft got very lucky with the change of party in charge, they were about to be broken up in the US into 'apps' and 'os'.
And that's a good punishment for companies that use the fact that they have their fingers in completely different pies to stifle the competition.
Breaking up VW would not accomplish much in that sense.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The EU effectively has the authority to decide who can do business in Europe. So Google/Alphabet presumably could refuse an EU breakup order, but they'd have to more or less exit business in Europe, including all of their various offices there. Both a lot of profit and talent left on the table. Someone much smarter than me would likely have to determine whether stockholders benefit more from a split up company that c…
The political backlash could make such a withdrawal rather temporary. Which would IMO push Google into staging such a withdrawal.
Does the EU even have the authority to break up Google/Alphabet?
The EU effectively has the authority to decide who can do business in Europe. So Google/Alphabet presumably could refuse an EU breakup order, but they'd have to more or less exit business in Europe, including all of their various offices there. Both a lot of profit and talent left on the table. Someone much smarter than me would likely have to determine whether stockholders benefit more from a split up company that c…
EDIT: I guess I didn't mean "what if Google was forced to do this overnight?", but rather I meant more like "couldn't Google make this backfire by doing this overnight?".
Honestly comes across as EU sour grapes. The "competition chief" should focus on the regulations that have resulted in low investment and slow innovation instead of trying to "regulate" American tech companies.
You mean like VW being called out in the United States for the diesel scandal was US sour grapes? Really, I'm all for symmetry with stuff like this if that is what it takes to get these giants to at least attempt to comply with the law.
Does the EU even have the authority to break up Google/Alphabet?
I don't think they really can. Effectively, they'd have to block Google in the EU. Otherwise, Google can technically just stay in the U.S. and sell services. Ad's don't have to be location based, pretty sure a lot of advertising is elicit materials (such as porn) anyway - which already may not be allowed. Unless you stop people from just heading to the top search engine in the world, they'll keep using it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean like VW being called out in the United States for the diesel scandal was US sour grapes? Really, I'm all for symmetry with stuff like this if that is what it takes to get these giants to at least attempt to comply with the law.
Were there other smoking gun cases of carmakers detecting emissions tests to alter car behavior?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The EU effectively has the authority to decide who can do business in Europe. So Google/Alphabet presumably could refuse an EU breakup order, but they'd have to more or less exit business in Europe, including all of their various offices there. Both a lot of profit and talent left on the table. Someone much smarter than me would likely have to determine whether stockholders benefit more from a split up company that c…
The political backlash could make such a withdrawal rather temporary. Which would IMO push Google into staging such a withdrawal.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The EU effectively has the authority to decide who can do business in Europe. So Google/Alphabet presumably could refuse an EU breakup order, but they'd have to more or less exit business in Europe, including all of their various offices there. Both a lot of profit and talent left on the table. Someone much smarter than me would likely have to determine whether stockholders benefit more from a split up company that c…
What happens to people's emails in Gmail if they exit business in Europe? Surely people won't just be cool with their leaders making them lose access to their emails? EDIT: I guess I didn't mean "what if Google was forced to do this overnight?", but rather I meant more like "couldn't Google make this backfire by doing this overnight?".