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Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

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Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#351

Post by raquo »

chocolatebunny wrote: post #330
jessriedel wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, the vast majority of the world does not use the day-fine system. But more importantly, it makes no sense to index corporate fines to a firm's revenue because corporations can be split/combined (unlike people). Indexing fines to firm size would lead to market distortions, especially in the case when those fines are a significant fraction of total revenue.

At this point it might actually make sense for Google to create a separate European entity so they won't get fined so heavily all the time in the EU. I guess they'd have to see how much of a benefit that would be relative to the amount of taxes they would save by being in Ireland (I'm not sure if that's still a thing).

The fine is already based on Google's European (not global) ad revenue as someone else quoted in the comments.

Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#352

Post by 1stcity3rdcoast »

rhizome wrote: post #348
leesalminen wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but should we? Probably not. That’s what I’m getting at.

Arguments by analogy are not worth anybody's time.

Arguments by analogy are an excellent way to compose an argument. Socrates built entire ethical systems using analogy.

Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#353

Post by UnFleshedOne »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #288
mfoy_ wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is indexed, just not to the damages, but to the revenue of the guilty party. Other countries in the EU do this as well, even in personal matters. For instance, a speeding ticket is based off a percentage of your annual income. Why? Because if you make $200k a year, a $50 fine isn't a big deal, at all, but if you barely scrape by, $50 could break your budget for the month.

> Why? Because if you make $200k a year, a $50 fine isn't a big deal, at all, but if you barely scrape by, $50 could break your budget for the month. That makes no sense. If you're stealing $50 then a $150 fine is a deterrent even if you're a billionaire, because the expected value if you're caught is -$100, which has nothing at all to do with how much money you have. And if that caused the billionaire to not care, t…

There is an argument for indexing fines to income or net worth for people too (in addition to severity of the crime) -- if you want to stop a behavior, for example speeding, it doesn't make sense to set the fine equal for everybody unless wealth distribution in society is remarkably flat, so the marginal value of lost money is similar for everybody. If you don't index for ability to pay you just create a separate set of laws for different classes of people.

This is basically the same argument as for progressive taxation.

Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#354

Post by UnFleshedOne »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #346
mfoy_ wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A normal fine simply becomes "the cost of doing business". The point is to deter Google, not to simply add a cost to its activities. Related links: https://rady.ucsd.edu/faculty/directory/gneezy/pub/docs/fine... NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/books/chapters/freakonomi... NPR: https://www.npr.org/2008/03/31/89233955/dan-ariely-takes-on-...

A fine is a price -- exactly. So why are you trying to deter them from doing something which they're willing to pay you more to let them do than it costs you to let them do it? Or if the fine would be lower for some other company with less money, then why are you willing to let that other company pay less to do it than it costs you to let them do it?

Fine is not supposed to be a price, taxes serve that purpose.

Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#355

Post by treis »

lovetox wrote: post #291
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why? Because if you make $200k a year, a $50 fine isn't a big deal, at all, but if you barely scrape by, $50 could break your budget for the month. That makes no sense. If you're stealing $50 then a $150 fine is a deterrent even if you're a billionaire, because the expected value if you're caught is -$100, which has nothing at all to do with how much money you have. And if that caused the billionaire to not care, t…

You are missing the point. Google does not just steal money which we get back with a fine and thats it. It drives competitors out of the market and that causes damage to the economy and is against the interests of the population where they do business. They should make the Managers personally liable. If you think about it 1.5 Billions is laughable for a company like Google, its only money which they have plenty from.…

>If you think about it 1.5 Billions is laughable for a company like Google, its only money which they have plenty from. Nothing will change.

Just because they have a lot of money doesn't mean they are okay with losing a bunch. As long as the fine amount, adjusting for the probability of the fine, is higher than benefit Google attains by breaking the law it will act as a deterrence.

Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#356

Post by AnthonyMouse »

UnFleshedOne wrote: post #354
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fine is a price -- exactly. So why are you trying to deter them from doing something which they're willing to pay you more to let them do than it costs you to let them do it? Or if the fine would be lower for some other company with less money, then why are you willing to let that other company pay less to do it than it costs you to let them do it?

Fine is not supposed to be a price, taxes serve that purpose.

A fine is supposed to be a price. If the only purpose was deterrence then why isn't every offense a capital one and every fine in the amount of "everything you've got"?

Taxes are something else entirely. Income taxes aren't intended to put a price on working so that people won't do it unless it's worth the cost, they're intended to raise government revenue.

Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#357

Post by mfoy_ »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #346
mfoy_ wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A normal fine simply becomes "the cost of doing business". The point is to deter Google, not to simply add a cost to its activities. Related links: https://rady.ucsd.edu/faculty/directory/gneezy/pub/docs/fine... NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/books/chapters/freakonomi... NPR: https://www.npr.org/2008/03/31/89233955/dan-ariely-takes-on-...

A fine is a price -- exactly. So why are you trying to deter them from doing something which they're willing to pay you more to let them do than it costs you to let them do it? Or if the fine would be lower for some other company with less money, then why are you willing to let that other company pay less to do it than it costs you to let them do it?

The daycare owner didn't want $10, he wanted to go home at 4pm.

You're missing the forest for the trees.

Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#358

Post by freeflight »

EpicEng wrote: post #315
freeflight wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be true, but one of my use-cases for YouTube is listening to music, over a tablet, while I shower So these 15-minute "ads" pretty much lead to the situation that halfway through my shower I won't be listening to music anymore, but rather some tutorial on how to best light a photoshoot or a "documentary" how Hezbollah is destroying Europe. Don't get me wrong here: They can have their ads, but throwing 15-mi…

If your use case is using a video streaming service to listen to music then perhaps you should consider using something else instead of fighting against the tide. Don't get me wrong, I do the same from time to time, but typically when I listen to music I'm not loading up YouTube...

The dynamic playlists actually make YouTube a pretty decent music streaming service. I can find a song I like and just create a "mix" out of it, featuring similar songs, with just 1 click.

Having the actual music video with the music is also a very nice extra, some of these can make a song like 10 times as good.

If the YouTube premium wouldn't be so expensive (asking 16€ per month over here) I'd already signed up just for getting ad-free music.

Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#359

Post by Barrin92 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #334
heavenlyblue wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe Google makes enough cash to hire people who could take care of those spammy websites. Instead, they consciously choose themselves to be a monopoly.

What do you mean "take care of them"? If they're not allowed to restrict you from displaying their ads next to ads from other networks, that's the exact thing the spammy websites were doing.

They can simply decide to pull their ads and not do business with websites that spam ads, if they think that's detrimental to them or doesn't provide them any value.

Exclusivity contracts give way too much power to Google at the expense of everyone else, if we could simply leave it to Google to decide which websites they want to place advertisements on.

It's like having a retail electronics store placing bad products from company B next to good products from company A. We don't really let A bully the store into exclusivity either, if A doesn't want to be associated with the store they can simply end their contract.

Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#360

Post by mfoy_ »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #325
andrepd wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At which point you can be happy that the rich person is voluntarily paying the 3 cent fine instead of the 1 cent parking fee. No, because the issue here is not like a fee, it's about breaking the law and how you should be punished for it in order for it to deter you. A more apt comparison would be "you can be happy that the a rich person is voluntarily paying 500$ to park on top of a crosswalk. In this case you want…

Nope, deterrence is still only required proportionally. If someone parks on a crosswalk and the cost of that to society is $200 and the fine is $500 then the fact that they're paying $500 means you're still coming out ahead. And if the cost to society is more than $500 then you've set the fine wrong regardless of who is paying it.

But the point isn't to turn something bad into a valid transaction that is simply unfavourable. The point is to deter the behaviour in the first place, regardless of how much you're willing to pay to do it.
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