Fines are not enough.
Mandatory jailtime - otherwise they just shrug it off.
EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps
131–140 of 199 posts
Re: EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. If a train ticket costs 100 euro and the fine for freeloading is 5 euro, you'd be a fool to buy a ticket. Don't blame Google for pushing boundaries. That's what people (and corpos) do in any competitive activity. Do blame our politicians for being incompetent and ill-meaning.
Back when I lived in Cambridge, someone worked out this was actually true for one of the car parks. (Not those exact numbers, but the same point).
I lived in a city where police can fine you for biking in the night without the lights on, but police catches people so rarely that, per ride, the mathematical expectation of a fine was lower than the cost of batteries.
Re: EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps
#133Ultimately AI will kill Google's search monopoly, not fines.
That's an interesting comment. I noticed already years before
AI emerged that Google ruined its search engine. I am not sure
AI per se kills search engines, but interestingly the other
search engines also suck immensely. Even from the User Interface,
which is strange to me. Qwant just copy/pasted Google's horrible
UI. DuckDuckGo is praised for reasons I don't understand - it
also produces really low quality results. It seems nobody is able
to come up with really good search engines anymore - they always
end up being absolute horrid jokes in this or that area.
Re: EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. If a train ticket costs 100 euro and the fine for freeloading is 5 euro, you'd be a fool to buy a ticket. Don't blame Google for pushing boundaries. That's what people (and corpos) do in any competitive activity. Do blame our politicians for being incompetent and ill-meaning.
Even if a train ticket costs 9 Euros and a fine is 60 Euros but you are almost never checked it quickly becomes cheaper to eat the fines.
Until the tragedy of the commons kicks in.
Re: EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps
#135For Google this is just like parking tickets to UPS. A cost of doing business in town.
this comment always comes up and it's _wrong_. The goal of the regulation is to get the operators to comply, which they usually do after fines (EDIT: and litigations and whining, of course), because the costs of infractions are increased if they don't comply.
No, the comment is not wrong. It is correct.
The big corporations don't really fix their evil behaviour. That's why fines keep on re-emerging.
> because the costs of infractions are increased if they don't comply.
See above. If the fines were to work, it would not become a repeating issue.
I think mandatory jailtimes are the only solution. When the CEOs are suddenly for 10 years in a small room, slowly they will begin to stop their mafia-strategy.
Re: EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps
#136[flagged]
Could a mega-project like Linux have originated in the US instead of a Finnish bedroom? I have my doubts tbh, it takes an absolute madman to start such an obviously doomed project without any business potential ;)
Someone accusing the US of having no madmen was not on my Bingo card for 2026.
Re: EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Skimmed (without AI). Look like feature request lists.
A list of features that would allow third-party AI systems background access to your microphone, camera, screen contents, location, notifications, contacts, SMS, Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Maps, and Phone. If this were granted, the expectation is that we would act surprised when it is fast-followed by requirements to use EU-controlled systems that can monitor this content.
The other option is nobody has this access, since it is only required because Google have built this access for themselves and the DMA simply requires they do not have privileged access because it is not competitive. This is a problem that only exists because Google wants that access for their own benefits.
Re: EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
So basically you need 3 persons writing compliance documentation and taking care of cybersecurity. Basically another 200000€ personal cost year in low cost area. 250000€ or more in bigger cities. You have a microprocessor in your product and it’s done deal. No big deal for corporations though. Buddy’s workplace hired new compliance department for this topic with 30 persons. That’s competition european way.
I'd rather have that than insecure hardware. It seems like it forces security to be a first class priority instead of an afterthought.
What you are also saying in the same sentence is
"I would rather only buy from megacorporations than small players"
Re: EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least they didn't double tap a school.
Agents of the Iranian government rape women as part of religious enforcement and hide bodies post murder to hide the evidence. There's no evidence of double tapping the school. That requires live surveillance. Come back when you have video of that.
Hey you forgot to call me an anti semite.
Re: EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
Back when I lived in Cambridge, someone worked out this was actually true for one of the car parks. (Not those exact numbers, but the same point).
I lived in a city where police can fine you for biking in the night without the lights on, but police catches people so rarely that, per ride, the mathematical expectation of a fine was lower than the cost of batteries.
You really shouldn't apply statistics this way. Expected value is useful if you're an insurance company because you can price insurance products slightly above the expected value, but if the fine is $100, batteries are $90, and you get fined after going on 10 bike rides the fine doesn't magically become $10 it's still $100 and you still could've saved $10 by spending $90 before getting on your bike. That is, unless you put $10 in a piggy bank every time you get on your bicycle, and then at that point why not put $90 down and then pay yourself back $9 per ride with $1 of interest?