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EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps

theguardian.com

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Re: EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps

#181

Post by Teever »

HatchedLake721 wrote: post #99
Teever wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the incorrect way to apply fines. The first fine should sting and the second should be damaging to a company and the third should be crippling. The EU has been fining Google for years to no avail.

> The EU has been fining Google for years to no avail. Me after a quick research: 2017: €2.42 billion fine for favoring its own comparison shopping service. Results: huge changes to Google's shopping service. 2018: €4 billion fine over Android-related practices. Results: Google Play separately from Google Search and Chrome, and manufacturers gained more flexibility over preinstalled apps.

I think that's a great start and I see a something close to a doubling from 2.42B to 4B but it stops there and this most recent fine is under a billion.

What we need to see is that exponential function. Everyone here should have at least the intuition from Moore's Law and COVID that exponential growth is either your best friend or your worst enemy depending on if it's working for you.

The next fine should've been 8B, and the one after that 16... The regression back down to 1B is counter productive to the goal of inducing compliance and reducing the offender's ability to continue to offend by taking away their resources to do so.

Re: EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps

#182

Post by amazingamazing »

trusche wrote: post #166
amazingamazing wrote: post #32

[flagged]

Is that supposed to be a snark? Do better. I prefer that we didn't miss the boat on caring for each other, not shooting each other constantly, and generally not feeling we're better than anybody else, and the need to point it out on HN.

You are projecting. Nowhere is it claimed that USA is better. The EU has been fining for competitive purposes, so where is it? The competition, if it is not clear.

Re: EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps

#183

Post by thesmtsolver2 »

cleansy wrote: post #34
krisroadruck wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one read. For me it feels like practically (ASML, ARM, SAP not withstanding) their only "contribution" to tech is fines and exporting regulation. Sometimes this works out well (usb-c on iPhone), but most of the time it feels like if they want software, hardware, or the web to operate the way they want, perhaps they should try to actually produce some of it instead of being wholly reliant on others while also t…

Google, Apple and co are free not to do business in the EU. There is no "overreach". It's a 450M pop market with a high median per-capita income. There are many reasons why the EU has a rather small tech industry of its own, high up among them that the EU does comparatively little to protect its market compared to China where most US tech companies don't even bother to enter anymore. In China, if a fine like this hit…

Isn't the median income per capita higher in the US. European companies are likewise free to pay tariffs or not do business.

EU does much more to protect its market compared to US.

EU was never a developing country like China. Most countries in EU benefited from centuries of exploitation of Asia, Africa and the Americas. They don't need protectionism.

It is immoral and ugly.

Re: EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps

#184

Post by riffraff »

p-e-w wrote: post #94
20k wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is they usually comply with the specific law being broken, and then immediately stop complying with a different law The goal should be to incentivise them to comply with the law as a whole, not to keep deliberately breaking different sections of the law to make profit above the level of fines That's why people want the level of the fines to go up, to disincentivise the more broad lawbreaking

Imagine regular laws worked that way, where a prior conviction is only relevant if it was for the exact same crime, and you can go around committing dozens of crimes and be treated like a first offender every time because this time you chose robbery and last time it was theft.

This is literally how it works for most fines.

You don't get a higher fine every time you go very the speed limit or park in the wrong place.

You don't get a higher fine if you don't have a bus ticket.

This is not a felony. Perhaps it should be, but it's not.

Re: EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps

#185

Post by ExoticPearTree »

Steve16384 wrote: post #149
ExoticPearTree wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are they false? Will the EC fund the road in front of my house from the money it gets from Google? Doubt it. And the AC is real, during the heatwave a few weeks back, the EC turned it off for the lower floors and kept it on the higher floor where the commissioners work. It was an article linked here on HN too.

"EU invests €2.8 billion in 94 transport projects": https://transport.ec.europa.eu/news-events/news/eu-invests-e... And heat rises. :D

That is less than 30mm on average per project. Pocket change for port infrastructure or decent railway improvements.

And yet, on that list it does not say the money comes from Google and the road outside my house is also not there.

You have to do better.

Re: EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps

#186

Post by 28304283409234 »

shevy-java wrote: post #133
saltysalt wrote: post #122

Ultimately 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.…

Tried Kagi.com yet? Search without being an ad-target in itself is a breath of fresh air.

Re: EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps

#188

Post by sylware »

dlahoda wrote: post #11
sylware wrote: post #9

google: 1 - restore interop with noscript/basic HTML browsers, stop favoring your 'whatwg cartel' web engine. 2 - gmail: restore interop with self-hosted SMTP servers without DNS (filtering on the IPv[46] literal from email address, this is stronger than SPF). And there is probably more to add.

What exactly monopoly is here?

"anti-trust" in many EU countries, is made of "competition authorities", namely dominant corporations on some significant "markets" get strong rules forced upon them that to allow to exist any reasonable real-life alternatives.

Here, Big Tech must interop with Small Tech. A common malicious behavior from Big Tech is to inflate by tons the required complexity and size of their 'tech' in order to make it out of reach by small competitors. This is one of the roles of market regulation. It seems they are now using 'security' (something which is only best-effort, it actually does not exist) to scare people to go to alternatives (how deep the rabbit hole goes here... mmmmh...)

In my EU country, we have a very good internet, thanks to _HARDCORE_ regulation which allowed small alternatives to be bootstrapped and to exist and grow. It is a bit different for gogol which is trying to create a 'very walled garden' like the "rotten fruit" company with this 101 malicious behavior on the long run: strong interop with 'Small Tech' at the beginning, slowly (~decade+) but surely this interop is broken to favor the 'Big Tech' from their cartel.

It is really complex: devil hides in the 'technical' details, it is case by case over some kind of continous spectrum. Here, it boiles down to the complexity/size of protocols, file formats with their stability in time: if you regulate here, "Small Tech" becomes a real-life alternative.

And don't be a fool at believing they are not talking to each other and play fair...

Re: EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps

#189

Post by Hikikomori »

inemesitaffia wrote: post #63
Hikikomori wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least they didn't double tap a school.

Apart from that, the IRGC has trained militants in Africa and supplied them with weapons and staff augmentation. One of the groups took over a church where refugees were hiding and burnt them alive in the building.

How many revolutions, terrorists, genocides, dictators has usa supported? I can easily say that the Iran regime should not exist, what I can't stand is people pretending USA has not done similar shit for the last 100 years. They're even the reason why the current Iranian regime is in power.

Re: EU fines Google €890M for competition breaches over search and apps

#190

Post by leonidasrup »

moi2388 wrote: post #178
leonidasrup wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US tariffs on EU automotive manufacturing, industrial equipment, chemicals, electronics, fashion, textiles, and luxury food and wine, would be only slap on wrist. The real danger of US retaliation for EU are: export tariffs on US LNG, loosing arms exports for Ukraine. This the real EU delicate balancing act.

At the beginning of 2025, the US was only supplying 20% of the military aid to ukraine. After that it has practically completely dried up. Ukraine and the EU are already producing themselves. This is a big long term loss to the US. Also if US makes their LNG unaffordable the EU will simply switch to countries like India. Who exactly is the US going to still sell to?

India is LNG importer, not LNG exporter.
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