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EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

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Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#91

Post by bilekas »

f6v wrote: post #47
dns_snek wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you blaming the EU and not Google's malicious compliance? They could simply ask you which map provider you'd like to use.

> They could simply ask you which map provider you'd like to use. Yeah that's why EU isn't producing capable tech competitors. If other map services want my business they need to work on that. Instead, someone who built a search infrastructure is supposed to do a free promotion for competitors.

> Yeah that's why EU isn't producing capable tech competitors.

Actually its how the EU avoids monopolization.

> If other map services want my business they need to work on that.

Yeah.. Because a startup is going to meaningfully compete against a company who uses forced internal integrations? DropBox is a good example I heard about recently, iCloud, OneDrive, lesser products maybe, was able to basically make Drop box irrelevant because of in-house integration with systems.

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#92

Post by surgical_fire »

plantain wrote: post #10

It drives me insane when in Europe the link between Google Search and Google Maps is broken and I often have to copy paste an address between the two. Thanks EU, what if I like Google's integrations?

You are thanking the wrong entity.

You should thank Google for their shitty product due to malicious compliance. A daily reminder that they don't care about their users.

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#93

Post by stymaar »

spwa4 wrote: post #78
stymaar wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The European Commission is way too pro-business for that, even when the said businesses are parasitic actors who don't even pay taxes in the EU.

Plus that just isn't how governments work. Governments work by imposing costs on others. They do not build.

What does it has to do with the topic? And saying “governments do not build” is a crazy antihistorical take: many things, from the space industry to the telco one were built by governments, as well as the energy and transport sectors in many countries.

For the past 50-ish years the West convinced itself that government should not build, and as a result we're suffering from a slow collapse of basic infrastructures. Meanwhile, in China and the Gulf, government kept building and the world's center of gravity steadily keeps moving eastwards.

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#94

Post by vrganj »

brainwad wrote: post #80
amelius wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is only true if Google isn't ordered to change its behavior and the fine isn't higher next time.

The EU just finds a new thing to fine each time. Since the scope of US consumer internet companies is so vast, they can mine €1b fines more or less limitlessly.

Maybe US consumer internet companies should try following our laws?

What do they expect if they come to our countries and break the law there? Of course they're gonna get fined?!

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#95

Post by vrganj »

kotaKat wrote: post #76
qq66 wrote: post #5

The EU has found a clever way to charge US tech companies for market access without triggering a WTO violation.

This time the American tech industry is the uncolonized native America, and the Europeans are the settlers that ran out of land to take over and decided they must forcefully re-colonize Americans and our design decisions and way of life by force.

This is such a ridiculous offender/victim reversal. American tech companies are free to do whatever they want in America. In our country, they need to follow our law. If they don't want that, they can get out.

What they're trying to do is colonize Europe with their lawlessness, they're trying to deny us our sovereign right of determining our own rules.

There's no right to come to our jurisdiction and then decide to ignore our rules. Either come and play by the rules or stay out.

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#96

Post by brainwad »

vrganj wrote: post #94
brainwad wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU just finds a new thing to fine each time. Since the scope of US consumer internet companies is so vast, they can mine €1b fines more or less limitlessly.

Maybe US consumer internet companies should try following our laws? What do they expect if they come to our countries and break the law there? Of course they're gonna get fined?!

The argument is that the laws are so broad that the EU can always find a violation even when companies try to follow the law, and that they mostly target foreign companies. TBH I find this focus defensible: the big US companies are just so much bigger that it makes more sense to police them than insignificant local players. But it is a good cash cow.

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#97

Post by RugnirViking »

radres wrote: post #50
plantain wrote: post #10

It drives me insane when in Europe the link between Google Search and Google Maps is broken and I often have to copy paste an address between the two. Thanks EU, what if I like Google's integrations?

Good god. That was an EU thing?

as with all of these laws, its EU writing a reasonable law, and the companies throwing their toys out the pram and complying as maliciously as possible

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#98

Post by cwillu »

bko wrote: post #87
phiresky wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU told them they can not by default prefer their own maps product when linking from their search product, they have to allow the user to choose. They could have simply added a selector when a user first clicks on the maps preview in the search result, and then remembered it on device or across that user's account. But of course, then the user could choose a competitor's product and Google would have to honor it.…

Google measures latency at microseconds.100 ms ≈ 0.2% fewer searches. Google tracks this very closely and invests a lot as that's the operational life blood of the company. You can make more money by simply making search easier. To save "it's easy" and Google chooses to nuke their own products for... I don't know what, stick it the European regulators, strikes me as incorrect. It's because it's incredibly hard to nav…

> No one would use the other maps because other maps are worse.

Do you realize how many commercial driving apps are based around OSM data?

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#99

Post by HeavyStorm »

phiresky wrote: post #21
plantain wrote: post #10

It drives me insane when in Europe the link between Google Search and Google Maps is broken and I often have to copy paste an address between the two. Thanks EU, what if I like Google's integrations?

The EU told them they can not by default prefer their own maps product when linking from their search product, they have to allow the user to choose. They could have simply added a selector when a user first clicks on the maps preview in the search result, and then remembered it on device or across that user's account. But of course, then the user could choose a competitor's product and Google would have to honor it.…

~don't~ be evil

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#100

Post by tpm »

rsynnott wrote: post #73
aabhay wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there is “law”, how much agency does an average European individual have in shaping those laws? This is a multi national body for which you can’t vote for its leader. You can’t vote on any of its resolutions or referendums.

It’s representative democracy, like most democracies. It is, granted, a particularly complex and confusing one. In practice, the average European has more agency in shaping EU law than the average American does in shaping US law; the US’s electoral system means that, realistically, on a federal level, most peoples’ votes simply do not matter (two party FPTP system, with most seats being safe). The EU parliament is at…

France does have a directly elected head of state (I wouldn't want to emulate that either, though their system is not purely presidential), as does South Korea, Mexico, Turkey and many other countries really.
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