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Google loses fight over record $4.7B EU antitrust fine

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Re: Google loses fight over record $4.7B EU antitrust fine

#111

Post by bfjvibybd6cuvu6 »

juliangmp wrote: post #52
xxs wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This judgment fails to recognize our significant investment to ensure Android remains open I wonder if that could be considered contempt of courts.

It's perfectly fine to disagree with a court's decision, what's the crime here?

Because it's factually and flagrantly incorrect.

> Contempt of court is a legal offense that occurs when an individual or organization interferes with the administration of justice or willfully disrespects a court's authority, dignity, or orders.

Re: Google loses fight over record $4.7B EU antitrust fine

#112

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Pawenniag wrote: post #88

The most interesting bit here is not really the fine but how long it took. By the time a platform case reaches the final court decision, the market has usually already moved on to the next platform bottleneck

While that's true, in theory the company will have changed their policies and way of working already, and the industry will be aware and move away from it. In theory.

Re: Google loses fight over record $4.7B EU antitrust fine

#113

Post by epolanski »

hparadiz wrote: post #92
epolanski wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU's concern is less "is it technically possible?" and more whether Google's licensing and commercial agreements discourage effective competition. In particular: - Google forced every manufacturer to have search and chrome on every android phone if they wanted access to Google Play. No technical reason, just forcing their position. This is why Samsung, despite investing on their browser, was still forced to ship…

The point of those agreements is to make sure those phone manufacturers didn't basterdize android with their garbage crapware like they all want to do. Google is actually protecting the average user in this situation by mandating some standards. They could simply lock Android down as closed source forever and move on from all of this.

> The point of those agreements is to make sure those phone manufacturers didn't basterdize android with their garbage crapware

You're naive if you think these deals were about protecting the user. It's a commercial and strategic play to make sure users end up on Google's core business products.

Manufacturers get a free OS they don't need to develop, Google gets their core business products in every user's hands as default.

They didn't develop an open source browser and OS for any other reason than money.

And they pay (Apple, Mozilla, etc) or commercially force the usage of those products wherever they can.

Re: Google loses fight over record $4.7B EU antitrust fine

#114

Post by f6v »

petesergeant wrote: post #70
f6v wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We would build our own alternatives. Right, and we haven’t because we just don’t wanna? The gap between US/China and the EU in AI is becoming wider by the day. Russia has like 3-4 large tech companies (Sber, Yandex, VK, and maybe Ozon). And they completely rely on foreign hardware. I don’t even want to imagine how could Russia start building frontier AI in these circumstances.

> Right, and we haven’t because we just don’t wanna? The EU hasn't because European investors are shy about deploying capital. If you look at European weapons and aerospace, it's clear there's no particular technical or capability barrier.

There was a very real barrier to building tech companies. We couldn't listen to Spotify at work during the time people seriously called Berlin the "SV of Europe" (our office was in the neighborhood called "SV Backyard"). Why? We didn't have enough bandwidth, and the wait time for fiber was measured in years.

Re: Google loses fight over record $4.7B EU antitrust fine

#115

Post by petcat »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #102
abc123abc123 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think rather, that it is the EU who cannot live without US cloud services and AI-services. Imagine if the US, behind closed doors of course, threatened to cut off all cloud services. Huge parts of the public and private sector could collapse.

EU can live fine without US cloud services, and it's not very dependent on AI at the moment. If access would be cut off, companies would just switch to other solutions, which BTW are already there. The question is more how much time they would have to switch and adapt. An unannounced zero-day cut off would be of course harmful for a while (days, weeks, maybe months), but on most parts could be probably solved in a sh…

The EU is doing the exact opposite of switching away from US tech. In fact they just announced that the new EU digital ID wallet is going to require Google or Apple device attestation.

That is two US companies in complete control of the fundamental digital ID system of the entire EU.

Everything they say about "digital sovereignty" is performative nonsense because they simply have no other options and no capacity to build replacements themselves.

Re: Google loses fight over record $4.7B EU antitrust fine

#116

Post by piva00 »

f6v wrote: post #55
w3ll_w3ll_w3ll wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We would build our own alternatives. Russia is a much smaller market (120 million people) and they have their own tech companies.

> We would build our own alternatives. Right, and we haven’t because we just don’t wanna? The gap between US/China and the EU in AI is becoming wider by the day. Russia has like 3-4 large tech companies (Sber, Yandex, VK, and maybe Ozon). And they completely rely on foreign hardware. I don’t even want to imagine how could Russia start building frontier AI in these circumstances.

> Right, and we haven’t because we just don’t wanna?

We have, they get bought by American companies as their exit strategy.

If American companies decide to shutdown access then there's no pressure from the behemoths to stamp out competition, it would just be natural that alternatives take over since the market clearly exists and without American tech companies filling that market it would be pretty easy for alternatives to grow.

Re: Google loses fight over record $4.7B EU antitrust fine

#117

Post by kryptiskt »

hparadiz wrote: post #108
ben_w wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh man you wanna talk about benefits? I actually don't even think the US should have given the internet to the world. It's basically been one giant gift. You didn't give the internet to the world. The world made it by copying stuff you had no power to prevent them copying. Also, the rest of the world had other networks, the US version (TCP/IP) just happened to win enough mindshare to replace e.g. https://en.wikiped…

[flagged]

That's not for you to choose, and I'm glad someone is taking on the thankless task of correcting all your misinformation.

Re: Google loses fight over record $4.7B EU antitrust fine

#118

Post by piva00 »

hparadiz wrote: post #108
ben_w wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh man you wanna talk about benefits? I actually don't even think the US should have given the internet to the world. It's basically been one giant gift. You didn't give the internet to the world. The world made it by copying stuff you had no power to prevent them copying. Also, the rest of the world had other networks, the US version (TCP/IP) just happened to win enough mindshare to replace e.g. https://en.wikiped…

[flagged]

[dead]

Re: Google loses fight over record $4.7B EU antitrust fine

#119

Post by PurpleRamen »

hparadiz wrote: post #82
cryptonym wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say you are right on this. What's the point of hurting yourself? There would be no meaningful benefit.

Oh man you wanna talk about benefits? I actually don't even think the US should have given the internet to the world. It's basically been one giant gift. Sure it's created a situation where we sell the tech both as software and hardware and that has allowed us to redirect wealth from the world to the US however in hindsight it's making our enemies stronger and allowing technology like drones to proliferate. An altern…

> I actually don't even think the US should have given the internet to the world.

Then European countries would have continued using their own networks.

> It's basically been one giant gift.

And Europa gifted their own part to it. Remember, World Wide Web originates from CERN in Switzerland, made by a brit.

Re: Google loses fight over record $4.7B EU antitrust fine

#120

Post by shmeeed »

netcan wrote: post #16

Apologies for the meta: I feel that our understanding of trust and antitrust, along with the legal and regulatory premises... Just isn't very useful in the 21st century. I understand the motivation, and justification for employing antitrust. Google's business model, and much of modern tech economy is really all about Monopoly-like market power. In fact, one of the main concerns for AI investors is price competition,…

PT's theory is full of strawmen, subtle leaps of logic, unproven postulates, and plain self-serving lies.

It seems he basically posits to have single-handedly reinvented monopoly theory. But such extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, which I'm not quite seeing. Some cherry-picked examples (like that old MS antitrust case) just don't cut it. And the mere existence of these monopolies in our time is not at all sufficient proof of a positive outcome (for whom, anyway?) in the end (what end, has anybody seen it yet?). In fact, I'd argue that it takes some quite rose-tinted glasses or a billionaire's mile-high distance to the ground to not see the huge problems they're posing to society right now.

The fact that this is coming from his position of great power, and that he himself is benefitting immensely from the theory he advocates, should be enough to make you pause and think really hard about what philosophy he's trying to sell you there, and why.

The puppet master wants you to cheer for our tech overlords and accept them as benevolent dictators because trust me bro. But do you really think what's driving this man's reasoning is the good of mankind - of you and me? If so, I have a bridge to sell you.

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