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

(ec.europa.eu)
398 points ChrisArchitect | 1 comments | 05 Sep 25 16:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.431s | source
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jjani ◴[05 Sep 25 18:17 UTC] No.45141781[source]▶
Going to pre-empt the comments that always pop up in these topics saying "Google/Meta/Apple will just leave the EU at this rate": Google still has around $20 billion yearly reasons to remain active in the EU. Talking Europe yearly net profit here, post-fine. No, they're not going to say "screw this fine, you can take your $20 billion per year, we're leaving!". The second that happens, shareholders will have Sundar's access revoked within the hour.

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.

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bee_rider ◴[05 Sep 25 18:44 UTC] No.45142120[source]▶
I love that you got one response calling it extortion, and another worrying that it might not have recovered all the money from the abusive practices.

The EU is threading the needle deftly here, I guess.

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nonethewiser ◴[05 Sep 25 19:21 UTC] No.45142549[source]▶
Im not necessarily saying its extortion. Im saying his observation is why the EU could extort Google for a lot more than $3B. My wording was unclear so I tried editing my original comment but apparently it was removed.

Why forfeit $20B in revenue in exchange for NOT having to pay $3B? I think that's an astute observation by the original commenter.

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1. saalweachter ◴[06 Sep 25 03:13 UTC] No.45146311[source]▶
So here's the thing.

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.