Ok, now can we also have a three-strikes policy please, with prison sentences. Otherwise this is just the cost of doing business.
replies(5):
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-prevails-l...
Can you name any other company that if they owned Chrome it would've been better for the users and the web?
The healing will be when all ads and marketing will be down to zero. This companies like Facebook and Google make their billions putting on your face what you don't want or need and someone else pays them good money for that.
You may think it's too radical but we must make marketing illegal. Then fix the web.
If Lina Khan only victory is that people are now aware that having a government this friendly with monopolies isn't normal, that's probably better than most politicians since Clinton.
Mozilla? Red Hat? Valve?
I agree that some sites make advertisements a massive eyesore, but that's a problem that can be solved in other ways.
The case in which the government didn’t get what it wanted was the online search case; the trial in the remedy phase of the ad tech case starts later this month, so talking about the difference between what Google would have gotten in the 1980s for that and what they are actually getting now is premature speculation.
There is a number of countries where Google has to deal with large levels of protectionist barriers (not the EU, these fines aren't that) and they still operate there. Korea is just one example. Because there's still a lot of money to be made. China isn't a counterexample: Google stopped operating search in China because at that point there was not a lot of money to be made for them in search there.
I've given some thought to this, and outright banning marketing sounds basically impossible. Not just from a "good luck getting that bill passed" sense, but in a practical one. Where do you draw the line on "marketing"? Presumably my writing a glowing review of a product I like won't be banned, and online banner ads will. I'm not trying to make a "the line is blurry therefore no regulation can happen" argument, rather I think "marketing" isn't really the right line. Specifically, what ought to be banned is the sale of attention. Anything where money or favors are changing hands in order to direct attention intentionally to your product, service, etc. So you can absolutely have a marketing page extolling the virtues of your brand. You cannot pay to have that page shoved in front of people's eyeballs.
Yes, I know that this kills the ad-based funding of the current internet. Let it burn. A mix of community-run free services and commercial paid services is infinitely preferable to the "free" trash we've grown dependent on.
To make an ethical argument: quantifying and selling human attention is gross anyway. Some things just don't belong on a market.
What makes you think they'll suddenly do a good job when the funding goes away, and they have to now support a large userbase which pays $0 to use the product.
The ads we see online now (and the tracking that goes with it) are what, 20 years old?
The type of marketing and advertising we live with now is a direct descendent of research and work done in the last century (thanks Bernays).
The whole point of Google was to get people answers to questions they have. Our current approach to advertising creates the problems in people’s heads only to immediately sell the solution.
Already has a browser. With debatable success.
> Red Hat?
Would probably rather end up under the Linux Foundation and not RH. How development would then continue is up for debate.
> Valve?
They already use CEF for their Steam client IIRC, but I don't think they are too much interested in owning an entire browser. Especially considering Valve itself is a relatively small company emplyee wise.
And it’s just a coincidence that they chose a company engaged in wrongdoing which breaks their laws, huh?
Please, with this cynical edgelord shit.
I think advertising has a huge, positive, 2nd order effect on the world.
> The Commission has ordered Google (i) to bring these self-preferencing practices to an end; and (ii) to implement measures to cease its inherent conflicts of interest along the adtech supply chain. Google has now 60 days to inform the Commission about how it intends to do so.
It is on top of ordering them to fix the business practices. They can always issue more fines if Google doesn’t comply.
IMO some of us here want to see these companies hurt. That’s a non-goal for the EU, they are looking for compliance, not vengeance or something silly like that.
This argument sounds intuitive, but are we really sure about that? People willingly seek out marketing materials to find things they want to buy. I've seen people flip through coupon books and catalogs as idle entertainment. That plus word of mouth may well be sufficient to keep knowledge of new products and such in circulation. Hell, it might even yield better-informed consumers, allowing the market to function more efficiently.
The EU has 450M (+80M for UK & similar non-eu countries that are likely to follow the EU on such regulations) population to the US' 350M.
The moment the likes of Google, or Meta, or Microsoft, or whomever else leave the EU, they immediately create a market gap. A market gap that will then in short order be filled with a European company that, because of the population sizes, has a notable comparative advantage to the US tech company.
+ As much as HN's readership loathes to admit it, regulations like this are "Good, Actually". Google's monopolist practices are bad for both advertisers and services showing ads. Any would-be competitor that arises from Google leaving the market would, by virtue of being forced by law to not be so shitty, be the better option. (And yes, this does also apply to pretty much all of the other big tech regulations as well.)
Like, c'mon. "Monopolies bad" is capitalism 101. Even the US' regulators thought Google was going too far.
Here in Sweden we have a legal tradition where the government doesn't have power over the enforcement of the laws-- parliament can make any law it likes, and it can be anything, but enforcement and the courts are isolated from the politicians.
I really don't like that the commission can make up rules, or fine people etc. It's a bad system. It should be done by an impartial regular, or prosecutor or a court. This kind of system opens up the commission to political blackmail and threats from powerful states, it opens up for corruption, it opens up for uneven enforcement, and there's just no reason to have the system this way.
You could easily imagine a world where Google was a big US government darling and where they put their weight on the commission and got an outcome that isn't in accordance with law, but with the right system, one more like the Swedish system, that won't be possible.
I can't find any details about those past cases with regards to - did they actually ended up paying anything at all?
Why forfeit $20B in revenue in exchange for NOT having to pay $3B? I think that's an astute observation by the original commenter.
Either this was also just edited in or I misread, but what I originally replied to was "I just added more context".
Your original comment above is no longer visible as it's been flagged. I don't see your edit, and no one else does either.
The two couldn't be more different than that. And I find it hard to believe your comment is genuine given the obvious difference.
No matter what anyone does, he just moves the goal posts. Let him keep his ball.
A lot of it is a because the US brands are more recognizable and cheaper (due to dumping) and grow faster (due to the USA's VC glut).
IIRC a company like AirBNB was started in Europe, and was slowly growing, and couldn't get investment because "who would want this?" and then AirBNB was created, and then arrived in Europe, and they still couldn't get investment because "who wants a ripoff clone of AirBNB?"
EDIT: FWIW I think your observation that the EU is threading a needle stands. It's a controversial topic that people are very passionate about.
And he’s, uh… very motivated by what others have to offer him… so FAANG clearly has some leverage there, but I don’t think it is necessarily a sure thing they’ll work something out.
I hope I am wrong, and would be happy if that were the case, but I find these deadlines laughable. In reality Google will delay this in courts for at least 5 years. In which time they will make some extra billions, and then the fine will be cut to a quarter of the current value. And by then they will have invented a new way to abuse consumers, just different enough to be the object of a new investigation and new court case that also takes years.
My hot take is that if they want to leave, then they can fuck right off. If you think your desires, profits, or business practices extend beyond democracy, then I don't need your business. Private enterprise should support and assist democracy, not the other way around (there's obviously some leeway there, but by and large).
And before we "Just don't break the laws" take note of the fact the the EU has a dead tech scene. I don't know how they expect competition to grow when they block all the sunlight in their tech fields.
If you don't want Google dominating your populations technology, try creating conditions to grow a replacement.
The EU Commission does not make up rules anymore than these government agencies in Sweden does.
My understanding is Sweden's "SEC" (in US terms) is called Finansinspektionen. Wouldnt this EU commission be like the Finansinspektionen issuing a fine or revoking a license if a bank didnt comply with regulations? My understanding is the Finansinspektionen can do this sort of thing but has to go to the court for larger actions.
Perhaps the EU commission has a bit more leeway?
Regulation may be good, but understand, actually, recognize, that it is also suffocating. People bragging that they have no weeds in their fields, when they have no fresh crops either....
This is not Europe racketing Google. Google is losing the same kind of trial everywhere in the world including the US for one simple reason: they are actually using anticompetitive practices in the ad tech market.
Honestly the most likely to benefit from this verdict are other American companies. You are welcome for us doing the enforcement your country refuses to do.
It really wouldn't.
We're having the wrong conversation here.
The reality is that these fines mean nothing for the average EU consumer. There's really no difference between a consumer in the EU, the US or China. As a EU consumer you win nothing from these fines. You won't be able to sue Google or any other company if they're abusing you or your data. You're just reading these stupid headlines about these huge fines and that's the end of it. Europe has huge power and could really change the way big companies work, but instead it chooses to do nothing but apply random huge fines here and there that change nothing in the grand scheme of things. It's a shame.
The European Commission is both the executive and legal branch. They propose the legislation that the European Parliament can only approve or reject. On the other hand, the European Patliament can not propose anything at all.
The idea that EU is somehow a mob boss shaking down American tech companies is plain ridiculous. Just take a look at the EU-US trade balance in service and you will understand in which direction the money is actually flying.
And the biggest companies aren’t automotive, gas and oil.
https://companiesmarketcap.com/european-union/largest-compan...
Maybe therefore the downvotes
Really? How many of the illegal boat immigrants work in the German healthcare sector? Because last time I checked they were mostly EU workers who got their job before crossing the border. Actual doctors and nurses don't need to cross borders illegally to get a job. I wasn't talking about skilled, LEGAL immigrants like doctors and nurses, I was talking about the other „Fachkräfte“ that tend to make the news.
>And the biggest companies aren’t automotive, gas and oil.
Maybe he meant in the tech sector. Because I can't take the LVMH sweatshop seriously even if they're making a lot of money. And the other companies on the list, FANG are worth more than all of them combined. I think even Nvidia is worth more than all of them.
I am not sure why but otherwise seemingly intelligent people seem to be incapable of internalizing that any cost, expense, or fine levied against any corporate entity will always, with 100% (not any other percentage) be rolled into prices. The minor headache of it lowering returns will also be offset and will not really make a difference to any meaningful degree. Most likely Google, just like other corporations that are exposed to this kind of risk, will have set aside a "war chest" they have been building up over prior years, which further would defray any real impact.
Then of course there is the fact that these fines are rarely ever the actual amount that will be paid in the end, and most of the time it can be distributed over time.
What people should really take away from this is that in the end it really is kind of an extortion racket by the EU, but not of Google, but rather of the advertising companies the end consumers who end up paying from he higher priced ads through product prices, and possibly the general Google customer base.
This would really only be an issue that materially impacted Google if there were some kind of real competition in the space, which there is not really. What the EU could possibly do that would have a notable impact is setting industry standards to, e.g., a universal ad format that is ad broker agnostic, e.g., your app, site, service, etc could just serve up ads from all kinds of places, a kind of free market of ads not dominated by Google.
But even with that, with Google's advancement in AI generated content, they will likely also dominate the ad generation market soon.
The oddest thing is that the EU and Europe in general has all but floundered in many ways regarding the generation of a competitive technology industry. But that's a whole different topic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_in_E...
Of course, in a market with this degree of concentrated market power, those fines would have to be very very high indeed...
I had a decent idea. Not that it's easily practical, but it's more practical than other solutions.
Major problem today is information asymmetry. Google giving you free YouTube videos is front and center. Google paying for it by linking your location and this and that fingerprint from here and there is hidden in whitewashed language 3 settings menus deep. Many things are hidden in bottom right of a billboard in fine print, t&c fine prints, etc,.
What I propose is the law making sure that all information about the product that you intend to or are forced to by regulation to make public, public in the same measure. That is, if you're going to advertise "coca cola, open happiness" you also need to have in the same fontsize "39g of sugar" right next to it. Similarly google search bar needs to say what info of yours helped serve the ads you see, right next to the content paid for by those ads.
If you're going to hide less palatable stuff in your t&c, then marketing logos slogans all become illegal for you. And all information even positive ones must also be in fontsize8 t&c fine print.
Real estate ads can't put *artists impression at the bottom right of their ad in fine print, it has to be as big as the main tagline.
You get the idea. What I gave are just examples, slight variations of the idea that still focus on information symmetry as the main goal, will also work.
In fact, this seems to be pretty similar to Sweden, quoting from [1]:
> Most state administrative authorities (statliga förvaltningsmyndigheter), as opposed to local authorities (kommuner), sorts under the Government, including the Armed Forces, Coast Guard, Customs Service and the police.
It appears that the swedish government can also initiate legislation, just like the commission (although the Riksdag can initiate on their own, something the European parliament cannot).
Also, fwiw: The fines can also be adjusted or cancelled by the court of Justice of the EU
Google applying tariffs to itself in Europe might be something the EC may a) investigate and fine Google for ripping off Europeans, and/or b) approve of; they previously considered a big-tech tax to improve competition in Europe. Google would be doing them a favor, and Trump won't send them a nastygram this time around.
>build the fines into operation costs and bill that to EU customers or maybe all Google customers looking to serve ads in the EU.
With the unprecedented extrajudicial approach the US has recently taken against certain recreational boaters in the Caribbean, perhaps they will realize Google is far worse and apply similar tactics.
Lawsuits will never amount to anything. And they are taking over the world. And in my opinion, they're verifiably more hostile than any boater I've ever been made aware of, including people on jet skis.
With the very substance of reality dissolving before our eyes, and considering we may be but a twitch of a jingo fingertip away from nuking the homeless, why not?
This is plainly untrue if you're talking about tech beyond the mag-7 sized supergiants.
> Regulation may be good, but understand, actually, recognize, that it is also suffocating. People bragging that they have no weeds in their fields, when they have no fresh crops either....
And yet it is the tech giants in the US, oh so praised for their size, that are the "weeds" in many regards.
What good is Google when it's reliant on an advertising monopoly itself built entirely on monopolistic and fraudulent exploitation of the rest of the economy.
What good is Amazon when it's reliant on crushing all other retail and local manufacturing?
There's this stuff about clarifying the DSA, for example. They simply shouldn't have such a power.
Law comes from parliament alone, and the constitution does not permit for the executive (regeringen) to intervene in individual cases.
The standard model for tech firms has been to run at enormous losses to push competition into bankruptcy or steal their users through subsidized service.
No European social media company could compete with e.g. Twitter, running at a loss for TWELVE years.
In more recent years, it's things like Uber. Subsidizing ride costs to crush existing taxi services & European taxi startups.
This is all, ostensibly, illegal under international law. You can't do it for cars or commodity goods. It's just not been enforced on the tech industry.
Even if I accepted this premise, from a realpolitik lens, why not? The USA has gone to the 'taffif/trade war bank' like 40 times, so maybe fight fire with fire?
> The Commission has already signalled its preliminary view that only the divestment by Google of part of its services would address the situation of inherent conflicts of interest, but it first wishes to hear and assess Google's proposal.
aka, breaking a monopoly.
thanks god for Europe.
Why do you think Silicon Valley was in… Silicon Valley? It certainly isn’t because it monopolistically killed EU chip fabs!
They just didn’t exist, and went out of their way to be a huge hassle to exist, and the EU still doesn’t have decent chip fabrication abilities.
It’s the same for software.
The EU commission on the other hand actually has power.
As one other example, consider the Swedish terrorism law. There's no such thing as designating something a terrorist organization-- that's constitutionally impossible, instead it's determined by the courts. Meanwhile the EU commission can actually designate a group as a terrorist organization, no court case necessary.
Source?
Back in 2010 when Google left, their search market share was close to 30%. It's hard to think there was no money to be made. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China
The remedy phase in the US trial over similar ad tech issues starts later this month, so it is premature to call it “what the US couldn’t do”.
(You may be confusing it with the recent partial ruling in the remedy phase of the separate search antitrust case.)
Google is abusing his position to prevent other companies to compete, hence decreasing the likelihood of European tech companies emerging.
Beside, I don't see how having strong monopolistic companies is beneficial to Americans citizens beside the tech bros working in Silicon Valley ? American companies are being ripped off on advertising just as bad as european companies used to be, and obviously they were following google rip off on goods price and customer had to pay more.
in my garden, if I see one rat it means there is at least a dozen more.
I'm aware of a single record case that cost the perp 350K. You really don't want to get zapped with the maximum fines based on wilful transgressions on large numbers of people.
edit: I misremembered, it was 100K higher.
That will make Google less competitive and allow more players on the market, breaking their monopoly. Not a bad outcome and probably exactly the point of these fines.
The EU would use public funding to build some sort of Google alternative and it would take ages, would be mediocre and most money would go to waste. Instead of incentivising entrepreneurship, which is what they probably should do.
We live very well in the EU. We don’t have to have millions in savings in order to retire. Strong worker protection. Plenty of time off. Low crime rates. Most people fantasise with becoming rich, but as in, “I had a rich aunt that I didn’t even meet in my life and I was the sole heir” or “I won the lottery”, not as in “I grinded for the best 10 years of my life working 100 hours per week before I sold my company” that seems more prevalent in the US. Ordinary people here are super happy if they can buy a small place to live (not a humongous house) even if it takes 25 years to pay it in full, then finish work at 5 and take their kids to the park and have dinner at some restaurant on Saturday.
OTOH: I think the current US administration is the best think that could happen to the EU, a big wake up call. Suddenly there’s money to invest in Defense and that kind of thing.
Also, hopefully LLMs will diminish Google’s importance, and as long as there’s competitive models not from the US (Mistral, DeepSeek) we might be fine. But Google holds all the cards (data). With stuff like the Harvard animosity they might even stop attracting all the foreign talent.
Apple? There’s Samsung for phones at least. Amazon? They’ve become a Temu/Aliexpress. Facebook… huge win if they stopped doing business in Europe. MS? This is the year of Linux in desktop?
The Cloud is one of those things where the EU could build something competitive/alternative just with public funding. All running on Linux, of course.
I give them money, and in return I get stuff that "all other retail" failed to provide.
That's good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...
were not about monetary fines, they are first and foremost about changing practices (behavioural remedies). Microsoft didn't even pay any money, they had to change how they operated their business in the US.
Likewise with both the recent antitrust trials in the US against Google: In one government prosecutors wanted them to sell off Chrome, the other they are trying to break Google Ads monopoly by breaking it up.
This is not a system extracting billions of the dollar for the 4th time in a couple years. Especially as others have mentioned that this commission is also the one inventing the rules, so it can keep doing it indefinitely for new reasons.
Competition doesn't necessarily just win in the mid-term. Competitions works - if the conditions are right, markets are anonymous and dynamic, not two-sided, not plaqued by information symmetries and - importantly - vertical entanglements. Competitions also works out in the long term. Like, take a hundred years and squint.
However, in the meantime of all this, there are many cases where the market outcome moves strikingly far away from the optimum. What that means is that the market situation destroys value (consumer welfare, societal roi, whatever)
You can scan the OP for about three sections and see that Google is violating any reasonable and established take on how market regulation, leading to an inefficient market outcome.
This is not some special European temperament. This is just standard and - just to make this clear - 100% American economic theory as previously applied and pioneered mainly in the good US of A. If this doesn't get applied in the US now, we may call this regulatory capture.
Personally, I feel it also really speaks to the situation that Google is lauded as representing the US tech scene. I disagree here. I think the US tech scene goes far beyond Google. Google ain't even a particular strength, probably more of a weakness by now.
By contrast, you could (and should) bring up about a million things the EU and the commision in particular does to stifle a EU tech scene. Bog standard application of competition policy ain't it.
Bet it was those who were asked about corruption and cut the microphone to those who really care.
We do deserve better in Europe.
This one is for Google. But Facebook and others do the same. How can we let them do this.
If you have responsability and let this happen, you just allow it.
The Commission is elected by member states and thus represents them indirectly.
You as a prosecutor, who will you take to jail? whole committee? Those who voted in-favour? Somebody who brought the proposal? Only CEO?
Each of these decisions if done consistently over time, would invoke changes in companies, to get some fall-guys in right places.
Something like web search is basicallly part of a modern digital infrastructure. We don't want entrepreneurship in water or energy supply, I don't think we should rely on it in web search, because it will inevitably end up chasing profits over everything else.
What are you implying? That letting foreign companies break laws would help the tech scene?
Or that the attention is so limited that any attempt of enforcing law necessarily means there is less attention to fostering the tech industry?
(Neither of the above interpretations make any sense)
They had to do that, or else what? Some form of cruel and unusual punishment that doesn’t involve fines?
Isn’t this process about compliance with laws too? They have had time to follow the laws but chosen not to.
You don't like outsiders poisoning your wells? You should poison it yourself instead!
The commission though, is literally doing things relating to individual cases, and they're politicians directly appointed by European governments.
Simply, it's not rule of law, it's rule by the council.
I doubt that google is a monopoly because they are the most competitive at what they do & thus have the market share. I have been using duckduckgo for honestly 3-4 years ago and I think that I have ublock so I don't see their ads but they are really nothing compared to google's ads and they rarely show even without adblocker (I think).
Duckduckgo is already really really competitive, You might argue that ddg uses bing and isn't independent but brave search is independent and comes really close to google to the point that you wouldn't know the difference.
I don't know the last time I used google but I love ddg's bangs etc.
I am sure that someone else can articulate what I am saying into something more logical as to why a monopoly can still exist even while being less competitive than competition.
And also I am saying that it is as easy as two clicks to change the default browser but it maybe speaks mountains that most people still don't switch from google to duckduckgo.
I sometimes want to recommend librewolf just because it has duckduckgo, ublock and sane defaults (except your web browsing deleted everytime/starting from clean slate (I think) and webgl stuff)
For example Danske Fragtmænd, challenged the Commission's decision that capital injections by Denmark and Sweden into Postnorrd did not constitute unlawful state aid.
(https://www.lexxion.eu/en/stateaidpost/what-competitors-must...)
> they're politicians directly appointed by European governments.
Just like Generaldirektörer in Sweden then.
Dude, 2.95 Billion $ is already steep, and I am sure that google used to get small fines when it was small in EU too, but its just that the rate at which google grows is more than the rate at which fines grow but I think that EU can't really make a really large number like suing google for 100 billion dollars. and I think that google already weighs in everything like the fines, the costs associated with exiting (stock price drops etc.) and they would actually just do whatever is more profitable to them of the following three options
A) stay in EU & pay the fines B) leave EU C) Follow EU requests
What is the fine amount which might change things into C) and not A) or B)
Because I think EU wants change not money, I am sure that they have plenty of money and they know that google isn't paying them out of their kindness. EU's people or even google itself isn't following EU laws and its affecting people living in EU. I wonder if someone thinks how much powerless EU might feel in that sense. They already have money, they want change.
>Ingen myndighet, inte heller riksdagen eller en kommuns beslutande organ, får bestämma hur en förvaltningsmyndighet i ett särskilt fall ska besluta i ett ärende som rör myndighetsutövning mot en enskild eller mot en kommun eller som rör tillämpningen av lag.
No authority [...] may decide how an administrative authority is to decide in a case involving use of authority against an individual[...]
Furthermore, the commission is not like a directors of an agency. They are politicians. I would compare them to government ministers, who are appointed in a similar way.
But I still feel like some points raised by the gp might be right. And I was laughing a little thinking that someone critizing the EU already makes you consider them as an american.
Like its just funny.
Also, I feel like every country has problems but countries should honestly first and foremost try to stay away from corruption and the billionaires/rich people's influence in general and try to be impartial. I do think that EU might be good in that but still, I sometimes wonder if this all might be a facade in the sense that EU wants to work and they want to show something for it and so that's why they are fining google only almost 3 billion$. Like maybe my trust in political systems is a little too faded seeing US instititutions erode in days (speaking as non american but I really admired american politics, not anymore)
Europeans are much poorer on average though, so actual revenue figures are rather the inverse of these population figures (they actually skew much more to the US than that, but anyhow).
VC funding (I think) drives on monopoly creation. Maybe that's why we were seeing a huge amount of VC funding in AI because they think that they want to monopolize "intelligence" this time so its the end goal as they are trying to monopolize the means towards creation...
I really want to learn how US got VC trapped. The whole economy's system issue arises from VC. Like, AI hype started from VC spending billions which then justified the absurd AI growth in things like magnificent 7 on stock market.
We really have these billionaires pulling quite deals which secretly shape the world to a much larger extent and they don't do it because of some evil reason but a plain old reason: money.
But the fact that all they care about money makes the companies inside VC justify doing evil things because morality isn't the end goal, helping isn't the end goal. Its money and more money and even more money. Guess what? Exploitation pays the most short term and these VC's prefer short term too.
VC and corruption seems to be the worst issues that I think really influence way way more of the world secretly and thus making "democracy" as one HN user pointed out on a different thread, a "copium for the masses"
While I agree this should ideally also be available to the EP, it doesn't make the EC a legislative branch. It's very much the executive.
Look at the comments in this post. The always pro-privacy, anti-ads HN suddenly moaning about this fine. Now that’s super funny and worth of a good laugh. Of course it’s an America vs EU thing, patriotism trumps (no pun intended) all else.
Some resources would definitely help me out here!
Also I think that I doubt how enforceable this is in tech industry as for the most part, they are selling a service and each service is different and thus have different price points and therefore the company should have the ability to decide prices technically.. so if they want to sell at a loss, theoretically nothing stops them from selling the service at a loss.
But I feel like the same logic applies to commodity goods. If two parties want to decide that they want to buy/sell at lower prices, why does the govt. interfere b/w them? Does this not impact their rights/freedom?
Amazon crushed all other retail in the first place and therefore, now all other retail can't provide some stuff and you buy them from amazon
That isn't good.
Man I am thinking of this as an ouroboros. Amazon got big because they crushed all other retail and they crush all other retail because they are big.
I think that the ouroboros that I am talking about should be known as the monoboros (get it? I am trying to have some fun by mixing monopoly and ouroboros, I hope you don't mind it)
Or just call this ouroboros a monpoly, man. it hurts me sometimes that you can't bring change in this world because of the way the world is right now and that bad things can happen in this world and its far far from perfect. I don't get how you guys or even anyone stays optimistic, I really wish to be a optimist logically but I can't come to that conclusion other than the fact that hey I run on emotions and bad emotions lead to bad things happening for me personally so I need to shut down bad emotions just so that they happen better for me. But that seems a little like running away from the truth. Should I feel okay running away from truth?
https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/mastercard-zahlt-kunden-...
However, the consumer effects of a "tax" or surcharge on a foreign service applied to a specific jurisdiction are indistinguishable from a tariff. The only difference is the money doesn't go to the government treasury - in any case, that's not the reason most governments introduce tariffs. If Google were to introduce a Europe surcharge, they'd be ironically in alignment with Brussels.
On a more serious note as much as you can be when you realize that discussions aren't happening in good faith and that biases like nations come...
I think that why nationalism/patriotism works is that the state has a monopoly over (legal) violence / laws in general. But the only way that might work is if we believe into them & thus nations have massive wheels of (propaganda?) or whatever it might take to convince the masses to be patriotic.
I feel like everyone all around the world is kinda the same man. We are homo sapiens. Nations shouldn't define us or the way we interact in an ideal world but I feel like a hypocrite when I myself defend my nation sometimes. I generally prefer decentralization to the point that we might take pride in our nations but we don't get influenced by it because the bigger the nation, the larger its influence/propaganda.
I feel like switzerland might be a good example in the sense that I have heard that there are people who don't even remember the (president/prime minister's?) name while working fine. I wonder if the whole world could essentially agree on international laws while being decentralized.
I just feel like that most of us are puppets and very few puppeteers in this world essentially controlling us / manipulating us into doing things that we generally wouldn't do.
East Asia (currently) has a completely different mindset, with tradeoffs, which is why it has completely replaced Silicon Valley for actual Silicon. And frankly, is starting to do the same for software.
Not to derail the conversation, but IMO the current US administration isn’t a wake up call. It’s a temper tantrum by people who understand that the US isn’t as relatively wealthy to the rest of the world as it was after WW2 but don’t understand why. If some of the thrash accidentally improves the West’s defensive posture or spending that’s good but there is no coherent plan of why things need to be changed.
We'll see how that pans out when the baby boomers finish retiring. Europe ate it's children to feed the retirees.
https://www.politico.eu/article/france-francois-bayrou-wakin...
Nice try of moving goalposts. „Fachkräfte“ is about refugees and legal immigrants.
But undeclared work in the care sector is what makes it affordable for many private people.
> Maybe he meant in the tech sector. Because I can't take the LVMH sweatshop seriously even if they're making a lot of money.
Why do you start at number 3 and ignore SAP and ASML?
Another goalpost. Parents point wasn’t about being better but existence
Nvidia is higher overvalued thanks to the AI bubble.
But Nvidia highly depends on TSMC and they depends on ASML
„Fachkräfte“ in quotes is often used by right wing racists to sarcastically describe immigrants if one of them commits a crime
Most of the things I own / purchase / use… I have neither seen a commercial for nor pursuaded by it if I saw it in passing. So there are other ways. Right now few of the largest companies on the planet contribute little-to-nothing to society other than showing garbage down people’s throats. Perhaps there is some happy medium but I don’t think society can ever reach it any longer
The actual legal mechanics are complicated; "Illegal under international law" here specifically entails "WTO agreements allow retaliation in response to dumping".
> and why I couldn't do it for cars or commodity goods.
Specifically, it's more enforced. Governments care about their conventional industry. The way this'd look is say, China providing state subsidy to certain industries in order to artificially lower the price of those goods, making them cheaper than US-based industry could produce, with the specific intent of driving US industry out of business.
Just googling "predatory pricing" and "dumping" will get you examples.
> Also I think that I doubt how enforceable this is in tech industry as for the most part, they are selling a service and each service is different and thus have different price points and therefore the company should have the ability to decide prices technically.
The problem for tech is this difficulty in assessing "real value" and the assumption that running at a loss for extended periods is "normal" for tech companies.
For a clear-cut example, consider Uber, who paid drivers more than they charged the passenger(s). This is obviously predatory. Uber has tricks like moving insurance/maintenance to the driver's wallet, but a taxi can't be cheaper than what they pay the driver.
> why does the govt. interfere b/w them? Does this not impact their rights/freedom?
It does impact their freedom, but the reason why the government intervenes is long-term health of the market.
Things like a 'firesale' because you're going out of business, or moving to a new warehouse, etc, are fine. A single store (even a big-box one) going out of business won't crush the entire market and it's only of short duration.
The problem is that dumping/predatory pricing is a strategy to maintain a monopoly. (Or in the cases of extensive investment funding, build one)
Again, consider something like Uber (but the same applies to any "rental"/gig-economy company). They sell rides below cost paid for by their huge pile of investment money, no other taxi company can compete. All the competing taxis go out of business. Uber can now raise the prices to obscene levels and cash in.
Whenever someone tries to start a new taxi company, it'll be small and local, so Uber just lowers their ride prices in that region again until they go out of business. And because they're small they don't have as much money as Uber so they'll go bankrupt first. Uber keeps the monopoly.
Such monopolies are long-term bad for the entire economy.
On an international level, it's China and steel again. China subsidizes their industry, industry in other countries can't compete and goes bankrupt, China can now raise their prices.
Amazon didn’t win because they were huge. They got huge by winning.
Now, they can afford to be shitty (unfortunately), which is actually helping local retail near as I can tell.
A more likely scenario is that some other big techs like MSFT or Meta would acquire Chrome and replace the monopolist position. This is the sad truth that many people try to underplay; Nature won't heal by itself. The market is already structured to incentivize monopolist behaviors, thanks to the scaling nature of big techs. You need correction to the market itself, which can only be done by an extremely competent legislative body but we won't have that anytime soon. But at least the EU has done something with DMA so there are still some hopes.
They're essentially apps that don't have to go through the app store.
Google is using their own ad exchange to fill ads? Isn't that... Their entire business model? Does the EU just want more intermediaries to exist? At the end of the day doesn't Google still get to decide how much an ad is worth when someone searches 'car insurance'?
To me this reads like the EU should pass a law describing exactly what they want.
>For example, Google Ads was avoiding competing ad exchanges and mainly placing bids on AdX, thus making it the most attractive ad exchange.
I just don't know why Google couldn't do this. Is this an instance of if they just never used other ad exchanges at all no one would be mad? Like Google getting called a monopoly by requiring the play store to be installed on android phones, while Apple obviously does exactly this just on their own hardware?
That just means the fines are inadequate. The solution is to increase them until shareholders are noticeably hurt. Pressure from shareholders on Google's management to stop the offending practices would soon effect the necessary change.
There is no doubt it puts pressure on the prices and in many cases it may entirely be reflected in the prices but the incentive structure doesn't actually necessitate it.
He's suggesting that the money Google does not make because of this regulation may be rolled into prices. The fact that eating the fees is not sustainable doesn't mean they have to take the margin hit for all associated costs.
Whether or not Google is "losing value" (aka money) or losing "illegal income", which aren't mutually exclusive by the way, has nothing to do with that dynamic. They could, in theory, roll that difference into prices either way.
They cost different things based off the country you are in. I guess you could try to distinguish between why they cost different prices in different countries and in some cases it's largely purchasing power parity, but others it absolutely is operational cost differences, such as cloud services. Uber is a bit more mixed - there are definitely purchasing power differences but there are also different regulatory requirements.
All that is to say you could never really tease it all out perfectly in practice.
That seems hard to quantify. But if it were true, why would the EU let large corporations operate in the EU?
I suppose the answer would be they are only damaging some people but other value them? And EU is catering more to those other stakeholders?
Personally I dont think large corporations have caused such incalculable harm to society but if they have, why even have them?
Americans are working 14.5 months a year while Europeans are working 12!
I promise you that within the US, each of those first two fantasies is more popular than the third one.
At the same time, Google absolutely has a significant stranglehold on the adtech market, which is what this is about, not search engines
See the recent thread about Nepal banning many apps and the comments are full of people saying that the EU should do the same or require that the content be even more moderated on all the platforms.
It's very sad to see.
I come here for the hacker news but it seems we are being overrun by a new kind of people who love when the EU intervenes to "regulate" the markets and fully believe that the EU is "pro" privacy (TM) and can't wait to impose new regulations all the while it's actually working to undermine encryption for everyone in Europe.
I guess the old saying is true, War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.
There are two types of businesses: those allergic to change, and those unable to stay the same.
If you are at a corporation where you constantly have to be Doing Things which Demonstrate Impact, this sort of judgement or regulatory change is a godsend for hundreds or thousands of middle-managers and engineers.
You have a project with clear goals ("comply with court order/new regulations"), relatively low bars for success (minimal impact on the bottom line), and it's all very clear to upper management that the work you're doing is Important. Heck, you might be able to lean on it for a couple of years to justify your existence, instead of trying to convince people that changing the rating system from a five point scale to a percentage then back to a five point scale was a worthwhile use of a dozen employees worth of headcount.
There may be some industries where change is anathema or the owners' oppositional defiance disorder makes they unwilling to change things just because they're illegal, but there's also plenty of others where people will be gleefully fighting for the opportunity to comply with a court order.
It's laughable that tarriffs and import taxes only apply to physical goods. If the EU had even an ounce of self-respect, the second the US came out with the tarriffs, they would've come out and said:
"We think this is a fantastic idea by Mr. Trump. Aligned with his views, we are instituting accompanying digital tarriffs to fix the digital trade defecit. We're sure he'll agree that the trade balance should be corrected in both the physical as well as digital worlds".
And that's why the US is so mad at the likes of Brazil - finally, after decades of getting rinsed, countries are starting to take (wholly insufficient) measures here and rightly instituting the equivalent of digital tarriffs.
I think your scenario is a real possibility, but ironically one that would cost the US a lot more than it gains. It's really playing with fire, running the risk of even just 1% of EU businesses and consumers opting for EU services over US ones. And just that 1% represents far more than all of the yearly fines to Google/Meta/Apple combined.
If Trump makes Google not pay the fine you think that will have no negative side-effects? His actions have been incredibly positive for European tech companies, 5 years ago the only ones that even considered not going for the US options were a few companies in Germany. Demand has skyrocketed and making Google not pay this would give it a huge boost.
If my environment was not inundated with advertisement, I'd only be seeing more things that I'd be willing to pay for, not less.
>I agree that some sites make advertisements a massive eyesore, but that's a problem that can be solved in other ways.
Ads are not simply a way of getting your product in front of people. Ever wonder why ads are the fig leaf for mass surveillance? It's because they constitute some primitive, mild, poorly understood, but completely socially acceptable form of *non-consensual behavior modification*.
That this has been tolerated up to now is a historical contigency. Much like other civilizational essentials like tobacco products and leaded gas, as soon as someone prices in the externalities - whether through regulation or through disruption - the societal attitudes to them will quickly change from "unavoidable" towards "inexcusable".
- Companies advertising through Google were not allowed to collaborate with other advertising companies under Google's contract. - Google runs an ad exchange (AdX) where advertisers and advertising spaces can connect, and Google didn't share platform's data with other members, giving them an unfair market advantage. - They also manipulated the way deals were made on the platform to their advantage.
To me it sounds just wrong anyway that Google runs this platform where companies compete with each other but also Google itself, so they'll always have more control.
I think it's a good idea having these anti trust rules, because otherwise you'll eventually get a a gigantic monopoly economy, and I just think that's not a good idea.
(It's probably more about keeping up politicians' stock market investments though)
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_State... [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/life-expe... [2]https://www.worlddata.info/cost-of-living.php
I gave the example of their to designate terrorist organization, which as you probably know is a power that is impossible constitutionally in Sweden. The commission has actual authority which is extremely broad and wielded in individual cases.
This is not a power that they should have.
In other words the executive branch has rulemaking powers in Sweden according to you.
How is that meaningfully different from how a EU commissioner is appointed?
Some people are so poor that all they have is money.
>3 § Med terroristorganisation avses i denna lag en sammanslutning av personer som begår eller på annat sätt medverkar till terroristbrott eller gör sig skyldiga till försök, förberedelse eller stämpling till terroristbrott.
Thus the government, SÄPO, the authorities etc. have no power over what is a terrorist organisation. There's designation or possibility of designation. Only the above definition defines it.
Notice that even state organizations of friendly states can in principle be terrorist organizations according to this definition. It's among the most beautiful laws we have.
I was initially opposed to the inquiry to develop this law, because I feared that we'd something deranged, something against our constitution where the government or some authority designates organizations as terrorist and where it's thus a political matter, but we got really lucky. This law is like a pearl, and it's moral delight, so beautiful that one should cry. Actual generality, actual equality before the law, actual apolitical court-based and truth-based, where others have political determinations.
The same argument used to justify slavery. Amazing.
And also, the illegal boat migrants don't work in the care sector but instead cost the state in welfare.
What about when many commit crimes? Starting with the act of immigrating illegally.
I find this trend encouraging and I hope that one day we can see ourselves as humans ahead of any artificial groupings we sort ourselves into.
The law which allow SÄPO to designate terror organisations is this: https://www.regeringen.se/regeringens-politik/utrikes--och-s...
Funnily enough this means that SÄPO generally consults with EU and UN regarding the classification status.
You seem to be under the impression that the executive branch in Sweden has no political rulemaking powers when it in fact has been given such according to constitution law.
Since we're already dreaming, I'd modify this to say companies can publish information about their products and services only on their own website, and the database just links to it.
> If you don't want Google dominating your populations technology, try creating conditions to grow a replacement.
Talk about fallacy.
It would be better if US started dividing these giants thereby allowing other companies to enter the market.
And before you say something on AI - your companies don't follow your laws either - IP laws - should we remove these? I would advocate that yes, we should - they are nothing more than nuisance (with all the suing costs) in modern times anyway.
We had a tech scene before 2010s - you just can not outcompete these US state-sanctioned companies when they don't follow the law and US cries every time when sane control is applied. And then there is China to add to that with Temu. Add to that Amazon and fact that there is more than one digital market based in central Europe should be impossible - but they do exist.
And yes we DO have conditions and 'sunlight'.
Look at payment for example:
Google - late 2010s Apple - middle 2010s Central European payment systems - 2000s
Some countries reached banking transfer unification - i.e one system to payment transfer with every bank in middle 2010s IN BANKING SYSTEM ITSELF - so as long you have bank account you don't have to have any other transfer system - your bank does it for you - instant.
Yeah so why exactly we have even any competition with Google and Apple? Ah yeah google pushes it's solution with 'card number' (which if you live in central Europe only time you will use is with US companies) to android.
I still remember culture shock card number gave some people. When my family member was asked by Netflix to give card number he thought it was fraud - because NO ONE ever did that. It took enormous amount of persuasion (and call to the bank) that yes - card number is valid system. He asked me what blocks netflix from slurping all the money if he cannot see the bank website. He solved problem with (I kid you not) separate banking account where he transferred money before giving that account card number.
And before you have misconception - he was poor but did somewhat (more than most I would say) understand IT - he just did not have trust for his 1000$ pension to not be misused by Netflix employees.
More? How about Comparison shopping website?
https://www.reuters.com/technology/eu-court-upholds-googles-...
Do you see pattern?
The issue is not that EU cannot make companies - it is that EU companies cannot survive in hostile US market that confuses capitalism with company owned oligarchy.
The thing about EU companies is that they are much more localised - after all they were historically created with country language in mind, not English, some today still don't exist on English web, so you will have trouble to even know about them. Most of them to this day only work in the same country.
American companies have 380M market + L2 + L3. They rarely limit themselves to country. EU companies have at best something in range 100M - but realistically if we talk about any other country this falls sharply to ten/s of millions of users.
You already have structural advantage.
US proved that cannot regulate and dismantle its molochs, your choice, but don't come to cry when EU looses patience.
Don't expect that if you try to build & hold monopolies in US because that makes US market "bigger" other countries will not punish you - it's unreasonable.
If US did exercise it's antitrust laws we wouldn't be here.
I think that EU is what UN wished it could've been in my opinion
The government doesn't proscribe organizations or make decisions about what is a terrorist organization. That is entirely up to the courts.
Who SÄPO consults with has no legal significance. I'm sure they even talk to the Turks.
What you link to relates to the Swedish government's ability to institute sanctions against foreign states and persons. That has nothing to do with what is a terrorist organization in Swedish law. Whether an organization is sanctioned does not affect whether the definition applies.
This is a very strongly stated opinion that directly contradicts basic theories like “supply and demand.” Of course, simple Econ 101 models often need to be expanded by more complex ones, to capture actual behavior. I guess given the level of smugness in your comment (“otherwise seemingly intelligent,” ok, lol) you have some pretty solid evidence that you just… decided not to share?
1. While the EU operates as a body for rule setting, the individual members are still highly autonomous in a way that doesn't compare to the types of collaboration that's possible across states in the USA. This is worsened by language divisi ons.
2. Internally each country is trying to foster their country as the place to be to launch a "start up", but that fragmentation is almost certainly slowing down the formation of a European equivalent to silicon valley.
3. There isn't a competitive investment funnel to what's available in the USA and the USA benefits from "network effect" style advantages purely from being further down the road. So if someone in the EU has a good start-up concept, chances are they'll try to make it work with the big guns in the USA, or cash it out to a US entity.
4. The EU is incredibly shortsighted in allowing the sale of important tech companies to foreign entities (primarily US-based entities). Many of the bigger advancements of today started in Europe.
5. Similar to points 3+4, companies in the USA are often able to build more value with the IP they develop or acquire (on account of numerous factors including some inconvenient ones). So even when a EU start up has a good product it may not necessarily be as successful due to those factors.
6. The EU tends to write ambiguous legislation that is open to interpretation and at worst: intentionally vague. While some believe this is just trap setting for collecting fines, the consequence of vague rules is a loss of appetite to develop in that market. English speaking markets tend to have much more specific legislation and their governments are available to offer specific guidance. This is something that the EU lacks and a frequent complaint from the likes of Google et. al.
1) 500 hours a week isn’t just unsustainable, it’s impossible? There are only 168 hours in a week. I’m assuming you mean 50.
2) You’re just agreeing with the point again. Europe cares more about being comfortable. The US cares more about making money and being competitive (well, used to until recently anyway). People do all sorts of unsustainable things for money, all the time.
So what point do you think you’re making?
Sure, if the folk at Google that coordinate this hypothetical Euro-fine surcharge entirely in person with no paper trail and are confident there will be no whistleblowers.
No oversight body with subpoena powers needs to "tease out" any information, they'll directly request the pricing formulas, related emails and underlying data for 2015-2025 and cross-check with consumer payments.
The real problem is that the US would leave Ukraine and Europe alone against Russia which has a real chance of turning into WW3. Most likely this isn’t discussed in the US media but feels like every week some notable politician or high-ranking military is warning that Russia will invade NATO after Ukraine. Trump knows our weakness and is squeezing hard.
The mood here in eastern Europe is very much that we’re talking when, not if, Russia attacks us.
By Asian standards, US working conditions are heaven.
EU isn’t particularly competitive even in the short term, but they are certainly comfortable. I guess we come back in a couple hundred years and see?