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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

#381

Post by fivefive55 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #377
mfoy_ wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The daycare owner didn't want $10, he wanted to go home at 4pm. You're missing the forest for the trees.

> The daycare owner didn't want $10, he wanted to go home at 4pm. Then he should have set the late fee to as much as the amount he wanted to go home earlier. Which would still be the same amount for every parent regardless of how much money they had, because which parent is late has nothing to do with how much he values not being able to go home on time.

So you set it to $1000. Now the parents are still late and also argue about the insane fine, so you get no money and end up staying later than you would have anyway arguing with the parents.

How about instead of a fine you give the kids to CPS. You go home on time, the late parents never come back, or if they do they're never late again, and you win.

I guess the point is that monetary punishments don't seem to work when companies can consider it as 'cost of doing business.' If we start taking away the company's hypothetical metaphorical children when they're late to pick them up then they have a reason to listen.

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

#382

Post by hellllllllooo »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #356
UnFleshedOne wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A fine is supposed to be a deterrent so it needs to be high enough to deter.

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

#383

Post by alexkcd »

dagw wrote: post #29
perttir wrote: post #23

That's small money for the Google. Last year they gave Google €4.34bn fine and in year 2017 they gave Google €2.42bn fine.

Basically, at this point I'm sure there is a standing ~€2.5 bn section in Google's annual budget simply labeled "misc. EU fines". If they manage to keep it under €2bn in any given year they probably consider that a win and pay out bonuses to their legal team.

Similarly, there's probably a ~€2.5 bn line item in the EU budget that reads "misc. Google fines". ;)

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

#384

Post by heavenlyblue »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #375
Barrin92 wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How is refusing to do business with anyone who doesn't give you de facto exclusivity any different than requiring de jure exclusivity?

If they really didn't want to be a monopoly - they'd figure out a way to classify spammers as such and provide a worse selection of ads for them.

Rather, they are specifically locking everyone on their platform.

I do not completely understand your "de facto" vs "de jure" distinction. Unless of course you don't see any other ways of dealing with your clients but a binary yes/no.

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

#385

Post by JabavuAdams »

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…

What happens to your scenario if the fine is for murder, not theft? What happens if the excess speeding results in measurable excess deaths? Let's keep it real.

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

#386

Post by yeahitslikethat »

rhizome wrote: post #368
1stcity3rdcoast wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You only have to look at what we have above, a changing of the subject from corporate punishment to...execution for marijuana possession. That is bad community'ing. As an aside, I've got some bad news about how Socrates' method worked out for him.

It worked out really well for him. You've heard of him thousands of years later. Thousands of years from now persons will continue to discuss him and you and all of us'll likely be forgotten.

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

#387

Post by dodobirdlord »

mirekrusin wrote: post #227
Jabbles wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vestager said the fine had been calculated based on Google's online advertising revenue in Europe. https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-google-margrethe-vest...

Seems like there are ways to avoid tax and ways to "recover" it back.

I happen to believe that the excessive "fines" that the EU has been directing at the technology industry are a brazen plan to extract money from large technology companies without violating international taxation treaties signed with the United States.

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

#388

Post by dodobirdlord »

Hamuko wrote: post #266
sabujp wrote: post #146

cost of doing business in EU when you're big

The cost of engaging in anti-competitive behaviour in the EU.

As far as I can tell, being a large successful technology company is anti-competitive behavior in the EU. This fine, and the multi-billion dollar fine last year, and the multi-billion dollar fine the year before that all are apparently for violations from 2008-2016, before Google had wised up to the fact that the EU was going to get out of fines what it couldn't get out of taxes. There will be another multi-billion dollar fine next year. There will be another multi-billion dollar fine the year after that. Technology companies are sufficiently dependent on economies of scale that the commission will never run out of "anti-competitive practices" to fine them for and it will never be the right financial move to fracture enough to escape the commission's gaze. The whole Irish tax haven thing was crafty, but the EU has figured out how to get its slice of the pie.

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

#389

Post by pmoriarty »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #367
UnFleshedOne wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 s…

"when you price something, rich people buy more of it because they have more money. If the price you've assigned to the risk is actually proportional to the cost being imposed by taking it, you really don't need to stop them. Just let them pay for the risk in money. Then use the money to pay for safety improvements or compensate victims or whatever you like..."

So don't try to stop rich people from driving drunk and killing people, for instance? Just let them do it and then pay off the victims and the victims' families?

Is that really what you're suggesting?

Somehow I suspect you'd reconsider if someone you cared about was killed in a DUI accident. No amount of money can bring them back.

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

#390

Post by utopcell »

int_19h wrote: post #342
utopcell wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Google Search page is not a market place and the original argument against Google is absurd. For instance, if I search for "The Art of Computer Programming" on Google, the first result through which I can actually buy the books is Amazon, arguably one of the largest competitors of Google. I understand the desire of playing Devil's Advocate here, but it's difficult to stomach. Google has been such a force for posi…

Does Google being "such a force for positive change globally" requires it to abuse its dominant position in the market to promote its unrelated products?

False premise: it doesn't.
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