Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

europa.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 975 posts

Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

#411

Post by rmc »

menegattig wrote: post #244

IMHO, antitrust fines/penalties should change from amount of money to some other type of penalty, like temporary market exclusion/block or something, otherwise companies like Google and others can simply use its cash (that's was also made due to the unfair advantage), pay the fine and move on to the next market dominance. They will always have cash to pay, even if the fines are higher and higher. They kind of expect…

I think 4½ billion euro is enough for Google sit up. This isn't a "pay and forget fine".

If they don't change in 90 days, they are fined 5% of their revenue every day. That's a lot.

Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

#412

Post by cornholio »

amelius wrote: post #55

I'm wondering how such a fine actually comes into existence. How does some EU committee get the idea that Google is anti-competitive here? Is this the result of lobbying by competitors? Can we somehow post the EU about instances where companies are being anti-competitive, and get them to take action somehow? Given the enormous amount of anti-competitive behavior we see every day in the news, I can't help but feel thi…

Google is debatably the leader of the tech market and mobile is the fastest growing segment, so the term "arbitrary" is not warranted - as in, picking market losers and winners by selective enforcement of the law.

Whenever allocating limited enforcement resources, you would expect the most egregious violators to be targeted first, with immediate social benefits and prompting self-compliance for smaller actors.

Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

#413

Post by dlp211 »

pstric wrote: post #170
repolfx wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That first claim is clearly wrong though. Firstly, Android doesn't have a monopoly. Apple does fine in Europe and their devices can be bought everywhere. Secondly, there are device makers that didn't cut a deal with Google, notably the Amazon phones and tablets. They weren't that popular with consumers but that's not Google's fault: it just means consumers highly value the additional services Google provides.

> Android doesn't have a monopoly. Apple does fine in Europe and their devices can be bought everywhere. As an independen device maker, you wouldn't be able to put iOS on your devices. Android has a huge margin over other viable alternatives.

As an independent phone maker, if this was their concern, they should have backed one of the other dozen or so attempts at a phone OS. No one forced them to choose Android.

They also have the option to write their own OS anytime they want.

Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

#414

Post by rusk »

frockington wrote: post #399
rusk wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah - having the state stand up for and protect your right to privacy is such a pain in the ass.

I would hate to live in such a restrictive area but that is probably more a cultural difference than anything. I'd rather have competition and innovation than security and stability. In my opinion it is the main distinguishing factor between the USA and Europe

No shortage of competition and innovation here my friend.

We're having this very discussion atop the world wide web which came from CERN.

There's no reason why I should have to sacrifice my privacy so that a few oligarchs can add a few more zeros to their bank accounts.

Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

#415

Post by rmc »

VikingCoder wrote: post #265
hrktb wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better source: > The European Commission has accused Google of abusing its Android market dominance by bundling its search engine and Chrome apps into the operating system. Google has also allegedly blocked phone makers from creating devices that run forked versions of Android. https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/18/17580694/google-android-e... > How is it any different Apple doesn’t have a dominent search engine to pu…

Oh, Apple is a brutal dictatorship that doesn't share anything? That's fine. Oh, Google, you're willing to share almost everything with anyone for free, but you want to put terms on that? Hey, here's a giant fine. I just don't understand the logic of this at all.

The logic is that the terms (that google wanted) are unfair and bad for the free market.

Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

#416

Post by Radle »

cncrnd wrote: post #258
ginko wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if you're caught parking in a handicapped spot, do you also expect a note asking you nicely to stop doing that in the future before getting a fine?

Yes, if the fine is 40% of my yearly income.

The last fine google got was 10% of their income, last year. This year they aren't playing by the rules again. What is the EU supposed to do? Give another 10% fine that will be ignored? Also the fine is not 40% of googles income. The corrected income this year is $22.4 billion USD. $5 billion is less than a quarter of that. Going from 10% to 20-25% seems totally okay, if google does not try to follow european law.

(The 2017 income of google is lower because they decided to use the new US tax law in order to move a lot of money to the USA which cost them $9.8 billion. But you can't say your income is low just because you spend it all on ice cream. This is why I use the adjusted number of $22.4 billion)

Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

#417

Post by tlamponi »

loourr wrote: post #396

This is crazy. It's like if Android wasn't open source at all this wouldn't be an issue. But because it is open source they're being punished.

False. Windows isn't open source and they got quite the same reacction with the accusation of using their monopoly to manipulate users into using internet explorer, thus resulting in a windows version with an initial browser choice when starting first. I don't know how much they were fined though...

Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

#418

Post by algorias »

andrepd wrote: post #368
renchap wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the initial fine. Now they have 90 days to comply, otherwise they will get penalties (up to 5% worldwide turnover of Alphabet) until they do. From the link: > Google must now bring the conduct effectively to an end within 90 days or face penalty payments of up to 5% of the average daily worldwide turnover of Alphabet, Google's parent company.

Is it me, or 5% isn't that much?

I think that would be 5% of gross revenue, not profits. I think it's an appropriately large number.

Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

#419

Post by flexie »

vixen99 wrote: post #284
flexie wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU is not using Google or any other company as a piggy bank. Google is doing business in the European Union making tens of billions of dollars and they should follow the rules, just like their European, American and Asian competitors. It's not like you have to be a legal genius to know the rules. They are right in the treaty (think of it as the EU constitution) and Google know about the many previous cases interp…

Has someone done some sums on how much is made by users using Google. Might it not be trillions of dollars?

It may very well be trillions. After all Google has above 90 percent share of search in Europe. But it doesn't mean they shouldn't follow the rules.

Re: European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

#420

Post by chmod775 »

endorphone wrote: post #305
Dayshine wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's read the law: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... >Article 102 >Any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position within the internal market or in a substantial part of it shall be prohibited as incompatible with the internal market in so far as it may affect trade between Member States. >Such abuse may, in particular, consist in: >b) limiting production, markets or techni…

How is that not clearly breaching d? They're a part of the same suite of apps that provide the "Android experience" (Google experience, whatever -- the thing that most consumers think of when they consider Android). They manifestly have a profound connection with each other. And let's be clear here lest there be any confusion -- zero customers want a vendor to do anything different, and the only reason some vendors w…

> They're a part of the same suite of apps that provide the "Android experience". They manifestly have a profound connection with each other.

Fire OS and my personal phone which is running a Google-free version of LineageOS would like to have a word.

> And if we just go around clubbing everything coarsely, why does my BMW have a BMW entertainment system?

BMW doesn't have a dominant market position it could abuse. Neither does Apple or any other company that Google is commonly compared to in these discussions.

Somehow these false-equivalences seem to be most common among people trying to push the "unfair fine" narrative.

On top of that you claim that because there are other companies/products that are in breach of the law - at least according to your misreading of it - this somehow makes the word of the law less clear cut in this case. Which just doesn't make any sense.

Let me throw your own words back at you: "you are not really thinking about it [your arguments] much."

Post reply on HN