EU hit Google with record fine of €2.4 billion over Google shopping service!

[Mehrunes]

First, they admit they are not a government. So they have no right or business acting like one by enforcing wackadoo laws through fines... that in fact are the complete opposite of promoting "free trade".

Nice strawman though.

International organizations have all the right to make laws and then enforce the laws they make if the states that create it agree on that. This is sad.

[Coconuter]

Did people not read the court's reasoning? Seems to be utter bullshit to say this violates their law.

"It has denied other companies the chance to compete on their merits and to innovate, and most importantly it has denied European consumers the benefits of competition, genuine choice and innovation."

"company had abused its power by promoting its own shopping comparison service at the top of search results"

"On smartphones, the facility typically dominates "above-the-fold" content, meaning users might not see any traditional links unless they scroll down."

This is comparable to saying a retail store displays items that they wish to display is wrong. Google is not a monopoly. 92% for searches, substantially less with sales. Which was the argument for its influence. Influence on sales. I can understand saying that this should be nipped before it creates a true problem, if proof of that existed. It doesn't though.

If you type an item into Google and buy the lowest price you see only on their paid adds, maybe you just shouldn't use the internet. Claiming that scrolling down is a problem is pathetic.

[Mehrunes]

Bandit theory... look it up. Its the basis of all government.

Those sovereign citizen vibes are getting stronger each time you post.

[Independent voter]

We think our current shopping results are useful and are a much-improved version of the text-only ads we showed a decade ago. Showing ads that include pictures, ratings, and prices benefits us, our advertisers, and most of all, our users. And we show them only when your feedback tells us they are relevant. Thousands of European merchants use these ads to compete with larger companies like Amazon and eBay.

Google responds and vows to keep fighting the EU's decision.

https://www.blog.google/topics/googl...-google-story/

$16 billion later everyone will settle.

[Deleted]

It is not/was not the purpose of the EU and is completely contrary to their self imposed mission statement.

You don't have to like it. But the EU is constantly overstepping its mandate, which is why leaving the EU was the UKs best decision if they hope to remain a sovereign state.

Actually, preventing market disturbances is one of the key things that the EU does, it has been the case since the very start of the economic union.

[ItsRainingMetal]

$16 bn and a year in court later, Google pays up.

[A dot Ham]

Even my condo has rules and fines, what does being a government have to do with it?

Or are they blackmailing me too?

Guess it depends on how widely they apply those rules and subsequent fines.

If your condo/hoa starts adding on a $50/month charge for landscaping and then suddenly removes all vegetation and replaces it with a rock garden... and continues to charge you $50, you might have an issue there. Or you would if you didn't have a hard on for the EU.

Fining a website for promoting their own goods and services over that of another company is a monopoly? Color me confused. Any half wit by now should know that the whether you are shopping or you simply browning the internet. Those that pay google more get front seats... that's their entire business model. I don't see how anything google does could be considered a monopoly, you would have to be REALLY reaching and applying vague laws to come to that conclusion... which coincidentally is exactly what is happening here.

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Actually, preventing market disturbances is one of the key things that the EU does, it has been the case since the very start of the economic union.

I wonder what kind of disturbance to business it would be if google simply stopped being available to EU countries. Counter productive no?

[Deleted]

We think our current shopping results are useful and are a much-improved version of the text-only ads we showed a decade ago. Showing ads that include pictures, ratings, and prices benefits us, our advertisers, and most of all, our users. And we show them only when your feedback tells us they are relevant. Thousands of European merchants use these ads to compete with larger companies like Amazon and eBay.

Google responds and vows to keep fighting the EU's decision.

https://www.blog.google/topics/googl...-google-story/

$16 billion later everyone will settle.

So their defence seems to be ''we are not contesting that it is illegal, it is just something that our consumers want''. I sure as hell hope that their lawyers can come up with something better than this.

[Mehrunes]

Refugee is a person that flees to the first country that is not under the war, so ye, we are dealing with immigrants.

You're conflating what a refugee is with obligations of refugees (or rather, right wing's bastardization of them) under EU regulations. It's not very effective. Either way, in this discussion the ~1 million economic migrants from Ukraine in Poland matters about as much as 2.8m Polish economic migrants in Germany. I.e. they don't matter whatsoever.

Well even if we take those 17k ppl, the next day they will flee to Germany. Also even back then, when those "democratic processes" happened, most of the ppl in PL were against immigrants. Why they did not make a referendum back then ?

If the refugees don't follow the rules of the refuge, their status can be revoked. Super complicated. And it matters jack shit if the people were against migrants back then (not like anyone polled attitudes towards refugee crisis before it was a thing, but expecting basic logic from a JKM supporter is somewhat misguided). The politicians were elected, they had free reign to negotiate things how they please. The mandate of Polish politicians is not an imperative one. Jesus sorrowful Christ, this is the basics of constitutional law of Poland.

[Tyrianth]

Did people not read the court's reasoning? Seems to be utter bullshit to say this violates their law.

"It has denied other companies the chance to compete on their merits and to innovate, and most importantly it has denied European consumers the benefits of competition, genuine choice and innovation."

"company had abused its power by promoting its own shopping comparison service at the top of search results"

"On smartphones, the facility typically dominates "above-the-fold" content, meaning users might not see any traditional links unless they scroll down."

This is comparable to saying a retail store displays items that they wish to display is wrong. Google is not a monopoly. 92% for searches, substantially less with sales. Which was the argument for its influence. Influence on sales. I can understand saying that this should be nipped before it creates a true problem, if proof of that existed. It doesn't though.

If you type an item into Google and buy the lowest price you see only on their paid adds, maybe you just shouldn't use the internet. Claiming that scrolling down is a problem is pathetic.

No, no it is not comparable. Do the retailers own a monopoly on all store front windows across the country?

[Independent voter]

So their defence seems to be ''we are not contesting that it is illegal, it is just something that our consumers want''. I sure as hell hope that their lawyers can come up with something better than this.

When you use Google to search for products, we try to give you what you’re looking for. Our ability to do that well isn’t favoring ourselves, or any particular site or seller--it’s the result of hard work and constant innovation, based on user feedback.

I think this is their defense, "the EU is mistaken in accusing us, Google".

[Tyrianth]

When you use Google to search for products, we try to give you what you’re looking for. Our ability to do that well isn’t favoring ourselves, or any particular site or seller--it’s the result of hard work and constant innovation, based on user feedback.

I think this is their defense, "the EU is mistaken in accusing us, Google".

Does Google Shopping have to pay AdSense for their sponsored links? Because otherwise it would pretty hard to prove they aren't favouring their own subsidiaries over other companies.

[Deleted]

I wonder what kind of disturbance to business it would be if google simply stopped being available to EU countries. Counter productive no?

It would absolutely be disruptive, however there is a 0% chance that google would do that.

Even in the unlikely case that they would, their void would probably be filled pretty quickly, since almost all of their products rely on a form of network effect to be valuable (the same effect they tried to use to leverage their shopping part of the company into an advantage). so google would love a massive amount of money and they would be replaced within the month.

Having said that, I don't see how this is relevant, should we let oil companies cause polution because they might stop giving oil? Should we allow hospitals to dictate prices because they might stop treating people otherwise?

The issue is that these companies have this kind of monopoly power to make these kinds of threats in the first place, hence special rules apply to companies that have monopoly powers to prevent them from manipulating the markets.

[Mehrunes]

It is not/was not the purpose of the EU and is completely contrary to their self imposed mission statement.

You don't have to like it. But the EU is constantly overstepping its mandate, which is why leaving the EU was the UKs best decision if they hope to remain a sovereign state.

But the basis for them making anti-trust laws, enforcing them and fining companies that break them all stem from the founding treaties. So no, EU is not overstepping its mandate. And there's a difference between free market and laissez-faire moronhood. Just because EU doesn't bend over backwards to corporate overlords doesn't mean its acting contrary to its "self imposed mission statement". Probably because EU is not a single-issue entity, and protecting consumer rights, which is the purpose of anti-trust laws, is one of its goals.

[A dot Ham]

If I recall correctly the normal legal standard for a monopoly that can influence the market is ~30%+, depending on the type of market (back when I studied this in college, might be a bit outdated). A quick google learns that google has about a ~70% market share when it comes to search engine in the US, would guess it's similar to the EU. Don't think anyone is contesting that they don't have a monopoly.

How then would you break up this "monopoly" and allow for competition?

A monopoly (from Greek μόνος mónos ["alone" or "single"] and πωλεῖν pōleîn ["to sell"]) exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity.

A monopoly requires raw material (something physical) since it isn't there is literally NOTHING that is preventing any Tom, Dick, or Harry from creating a competing product.

For example I prefer to use bing.com for my porn searches as it returns better results.

There are other engines out there. A consumer's preference isn't a monopoly.

If 70% of the world prefers Coca Cola... does Coca Cola have a monopoly on maple colored soda? No.

[frogger237]

I'm surprised google doesn't have a secret wing that deals with shit like this by going around to judges and stuff and mentioning their search history. Most judges and stuff are over 40 and most older people don't know how to use incognito. Plus its not like the would run into someone who uses bing, microsoft employees dont even use bing.

[Mehrunes]

Im also interested, what does happen to the money from fines like this? I guess some of it pays legal costs?

Fines are listed among "other sources of revenue" of the EU budget. So probably go directly to it. And legal costs are usually separate from the fines themselves (though it could have been lost in journalist presentation of topic and the legal costs may have been included in the sum).

[A dot Ham]

It would absolutely be disruptive, however there is a 0% chance that google would do that.

So if there is zero chance... the EU can slap them with whatever fine they damn well please at whatever time of day they feel like doing it, using whatever foolhardy and unjust law they deem appropriate at the time?

Still sounds like blackmail.

[Deleted]

When you use Google to search for products, we try to give you what you’re looking for. Our ability to do that well isn’t favoring ourselves, or any particular site or seller--it’s the result of hard work and constant innovation, based on user feedback.

I think this is their defense, "the EU is mistaken in accusing us, Google".

The EU isn't contesting that they arn't fairly presenting the search results, they are accusing them of promoting their own ''shopping'' company, which they are blatantly doing by automatically placing that at the top of their search results whenever someone is looking for a certain product.

While this may be consumer friendly, it is detrimental to other website that are comparing prices because they will get found far less when using the google search engine.

[Independent voter]

"It's maddening, it's disappointing, it's clear that this comes from a political place, it has no basis in fact or in law, and unfortunately it's one of those things we have to work through."

"When you're accused of doing something that is so foreign to your values, it brings out an outrage in you, and that's how we feel. Apple has always been about doing the right thing.

"We haven't done anything wrong, and the Irish government hasn't done anything wrong."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37242357

Tim Cook, Apple.

If you're an American firm, you're not welcome in the EU.