Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

Post by easytiger » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 1:54 PM UTC

Kurtz79 wrote: post #169

easytiger wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you think scaling that up to a massive scale where a handful of interests, namely France and Germany, have near complete sway over the agenda makes sense?

France and Germany have the most members, but not nearly enough to take decision by themselves or have control of the agenda. Besides, the point is moot, because parliament members tend to group themselves based on shared political views, rather than by country. That countries with more population should have more representation and more weight in the decisions, to me makes sense.

Post by jorvi » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 2:00 PM UTC

matt4077 wrote: post #174

jorvi wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A good faith interpretation would be that the US has the most advanced system for financial regulation One only has to take a peek at the HSBC cartel scandals to know that's patently bullshit.

? HSBC is a British bank. Yet, skimming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC#Controversies it appears almost all investigations and fines were the result of SEC and other US investigations.

Post by duado » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 2:07 PM UTC

kittiepryde wrote: post #171

adventured wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one part of the story. There's only one tech company in all of Europe that can easily digest a $1.7 billion fine. SAP is Europe's most profitable tech company by far. About $4.5 billion in net income ($7b in operating income). The US has at least 16 tech companies at that level of profit or higher. Just Microsoft + Google + Amazon + Facebook + Apple = $185 billion in annual operating income. In terms of sales,…

Is profit and annual operating income supposed to be equivalent?

Post by briandear » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 2:15 PM UTC

908087 wrote: post #160

kypro wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely not a small cost. It cost the last startup I worked for around two weeks of development time, plus in many cases it prevents us (or adds massive restrictions) on collecting contact information from leads. It has certainly affected the bottom line of companies like Facebook and Google, but they can afford to take the hit, not all startups can. I'm not really disagree that companies "should" do it. But…

"My back alley butcher shop startup had to spend two weeks developing new methods because of unfair health regulations!"

Post by martin_a » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 2:19 PM UTC

kypro wrote: post #159

wlll wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take my data being protected over your ability to scale any day, and remember, if a US company wants to do business with EU citizens they still need to comply.

But unlike EU startups, US startups have the advantage of only having to to comply with EU regulation when they're at scale and profitable. I actually like GDPR and would love it if it was made law worldwide, but right now that's not the case and with being EU only it comes at the cost of EU tech. And if the EU wishes to remain economically competitive with the US in the coming decades we're going to need tech and GD…