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Google loses fight over record $4.7B EU antitrust fine

cnbc.com

181–190 of 254 posts

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

#181
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can disagree with the judgment as long as you follow the orders.

[flagged]

you can disagree what you can't is: "scandalize the court" IE: claiming the Judge is racist or corrupt, I think its the same in Germany and Italy.

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

#182

> U.S. ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder told CNBC that Europe “can’t over regulate” and hit companies with “huge fines” if it is going to participate in the AI economy. Imagine what these companies are doing in the US to their citizens, if ambassador is ready to defend them for violating rules/laws

Unbelievable. Heading towards a dystopia at full speed.

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

#184
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As he just found out, that's exactly what the EU can do. And as he's about to find out, the EU is way too important a market for the American economy to ignore or pull out of. Play on your neighbour's yard, obey their rules.

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.

That's why our relationship is ending.

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

#185
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

they did not "just announce" that, it was a rather technical decision several layers down, made a while ago. Sure, some things are not easily created without US companies but the overall tendency is pretty clear and it is: reduce absolute dependencies.

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

#187

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.

This already happened. The US government cut off a judge at the international criminal court from her Office365 account because she was pressing a war crimes case against Benjamin Netanyahu. It's the reason why in the last year you've seen multiple European governments very quickly build an escape hatch against US tech. We all expect that you'll use our dependency on US services as a weapon, you've already done so, s…

If it's the same woman I'm thinking of Office365 is underselling it a bit - she's fully sanctioned by the US. She can't use debit/credit cards, any Apple/Google device or service, Amazon/eBay, etc. She's completely digitally crippled by sanctions. And she's one of several people.

As a European I really hope we create an entirely separate homegrown tech sector, and fast.

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

#188
post #10

These are basically meant as tarriffs, right?

No, these are anti-trust fines. If you want to participate in the EU zone, you can't have monopolistic behaviors. It might sound strange for the US, but you can't simply corner a market and then claim it's innovation and 'good for the customer'. The EU has a LONG history of these regulations, it's nothing new but the more rich a company becomes the more these fines are just the price of doing business. Instead, here'…

> Instead, here's a wild take. Why don't they just follow the regulations and continue to make profits.

Far more likely that Google is just going to follow Apple's lead and stop releasing new features in the EU that the rest of the world gets to enjoy.

From The Washington Post:

> Behind all this lies the dream that Europe could be a “regulatory superpower.” It wanted to create a market too big to skip that would, by virtue of its heft, end up exporting its rules to the rest of the world. That hasn’t worked out.

> When adapting a product for Europe costs more than European market access is worth, companies no longer comply. They simply leave out the feature.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/06/14/apple-wit...

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

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only this was applied evenly. Why is every Samsung/LG/literally every non-Pixel device full of uninstallable crapware?

None of those companies have the market power Google does.

This is really important. Unless it's straight up fraud or a safety issue, most market participants are totally allowed to ship garbage (who are we to judge?).

At some point when monopoly power tests start turning true then the bar is raised (as it should be).

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

#190
post #4

“Android provides more choice for everyone and supports thousands of businesses. This judgment fails to recognize our significant investment to ensure Android remains open, interoperable and free,” a Google spokesperson told CNBC. Sure. Which is why alternative stores like F-Droid are under threat now. https://keepandroidopen.org/

Why I cannot send email from my self-hosted, no dns, servers to gmail? email addresses with IP literals are much stronger than SPF (email is dropped if the IP of the SMTP client does not match the IP literal in the envelope and in all appropriate 'from' headers). I cannot browse youtube with a noscript/basic HTML browser (basic HTML element). It is not enough, much more is needed to make those companies behave.

You misunderstand the security apparatus required to prevent spam if you believe that IP matching is sufficient.
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