Seems like a lot of non-lawyers are learning how competition law works and very upset that it also applies to tech. This thread, unfortunately, contains a very low-level discussion regarding what's going on because it is premised upon whether or not competition law has merit in the first place, rather than whether or not it should apply in this specific instance. This is understandable, because most people here don't actually understand the competition framework or how its various moving parts work, either in principle or in practice.
Google has enough lawyers to know that its internal policy was at risk of triggering competition oversight. If it didn't, it has a horrendously inept legal and regulatory risk compliance structure in place.
As a point, in competition cases, companies will generally try to bite off more than they know the regulators will allow, then use that action to shift the goalposts to negotiate better boundaries for their practices or acquisitions than they would have otherwise obtained.[1]
This is what Google has done. Only most people don't see it because their main competitive advantage hasn't' been in easily analysed assets like high-margin factories or efficient logistics operations. Our language of business is not well structured for discussing the competitive advantage Google has acquired by repeatedly leveraging their search engine into other markets. So we ignore it.
Contrary to what people are saying, it is very clear where the 'line' was crossed from the competition perspective. Google has crossed that line multiple times in the past and gotten away free. It is more shocking, from a competition perspective, that they haven't been hit in the past.
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[1] To explain the footnoted paragraph further: companies will offer to buy competitors that would bring it well past the market dominance high-water mark (different countries' legislation use different terminology to denote this point, but as a rule of thumb when you hit 40-50% of a given market, competition concerns arise). Companies then apply for regulator blessing for the entire acquisition knowing they won't get it. The hope is that the regulator will allow them to try to and keep all of the high-margin, high-value 'crown jewels' and make a show of disposing of underperforming assets. Doing this allows regulators the ability to say they exercised effective oversight, while the company is able to point to their balance sheet's performance over their competitors. Obtaining this advantage then allows them to raise at lower rates and fund activities to buy market share then rely on organic growth (which regulators don't take action against) to crush their opponents. This is a very standard market consolidation playbook for a player in the market.