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European Commission fines Google €2.95B over abusive ad tech practices

(ec.europa.eu)
398 points ChrisArchitect | 5 comments | 05 Sep 25 16:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.979s | source
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impossiblefork ◴[05 Sep 25 19:18 UTC] No.45142502[source]▶
I don't think this decision is wrong, I'm from the EU, and I think companies like Google have too much power anyway, but I don't like the ability of the commission to enforce things.

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.

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1. lucianbr ◴[05 Sep 25 19:41 UTC] No.45142772[source]▶
Who does "enforcement" in Sweden? Is the police somehow under the courts? Same for things like consumer protection agencies, environment protection and so on? Are prosecutors somehow in the same group as the judges? That may work for you, but I see some potential for abuse there as well. I think that is how it turned out in Japan, once you are prosecuted conviction is a foregone conclusion.
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2. victorbjorklund ◴[05 Sep 25 19:47 UTC] No.45142828[source]▶
No, they are not. The police is under the control of the central government (and that includes the courts). Yes, it is true that swedish politicans dont want to give the impression they control the actions of the police etc but of course in the end they do. The difference is maybe in the US politicans say "I gave the order to the police to do X" while in Sweden they would say in private "you probably should do X or we might find a replacement"
3. Zironic ◴[05 Sep 25 19:50 UTC] No.45142860[source]▶
The way it works is that the goverment (The politicians in executive positions) are allowed to write policy for all goverment agencies but they're not legally allowed to tell the agency how to handle any given individual case.
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4. lucianbr ◴[05 Sep 25 19:53 UTC] No.45142892[source]▶
Who hires / appoints the chiefs of the agencies?
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5. Y-bar ◴[05 Sep 25 21:52 UTC] No.45144083{3}[source]▶
The government, specifically the Regering and the prime minister: https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utn%C3%A4mningsmakten_i_Sver... (sorry only in Swedish)