The EU Has a Plan To Break Up Google 334
An anonymous reader points out a report at the Financial Times (paywalled) which says the European Parliament is preparing to call for the break-up of Google. According to the draft seen by the FT, a potential solution to ongoing anti-trust concerns with Google is "unbundling search engines from other services." The article notes, "The European parliament has no formal power to split up companies, but has increasing influence on the commission, which initiates all EU legislation. The commission has been investigating concerns over Google’s dominance of online search for five years, with critics arguing that the company’s rankings favour its own services, hitting its rivals’ profits. Unbundling cannot be excluded, said Andreas Schwab, a German MEP who is one of the motion’s backers."
In an unrelated news item... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:In an unrelated news item... (Score:5, Funny)
Europe disappeared from the worldwide web today.
Would that be because the EU parliament exercised their right to be forgotten?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:In an unrelated news item... (Score:5, Insightful)
This stupid nonsense is posted every time the EU acts in relation to american companies.
It's among the worst nationalistic hogwash misconceptions ever, easily on par with North Korea rambling about its moon base.
The EU is bigger than the USA in almost every metric, especially on the important ones: Population count (507 mio. vs. 319 mio.) and GDP (18.4 trio. US$ vs. 16.8 trio. US$).
Any big american company deciding to withdraw from Europe would have its board of directors kicked out faster than they can sign the paperwork to make it happen, or watch its stock crash & burn, because they've just not only moved out of its biggest market, they've also given a free playing ground for a global competitor to emerge unchallenged.
Re:In an unrelated news item... (Score:4, Insightful)
But this represents an existential threat - when viewed that way, it's a no-brainer to give up a market, even a huge market, if the price of admission is too high. Also, Google doesn't have to stop serving them, just stop doing business there.
Also, don't forget that Google pulled out of China, and China has a lot more population and will have the biggest GDP shortly. This is far more concerning than a little espionage.
Re:In an unrelated news item... (Score:5, Informative)
But this represents an existential threat - when viewed that way, it's a no-brainer to give up a market, even a huge market, if the price of admission is too high. Also, Google doesn't have to stop serving them, just stop doing business there.
Also, don't forget that Google pulled out of China, and China has a lot more population and will have the biggest GDP shortly. This is far more concerning than a little espionage.
But China was demanding a bit more than the EU who merely wants Google to break up it's operations in the EU into separate business units. China wanted Google to censor web searches and rat out Chinese citizens for regime critical utterances and activities. Pulling out of China in the face of those demands makes sense since Google's position as an information broker depends to a large extent on whether the public trusts them or not. If a large number of people get the notion that Google cannot be trusted, Google could easily see a collapse of it's share of the internet search market. Of course somebody will inevitably ignore this fact and go straight to pointing out that Google feeds information about it's users to the NSA as a matter of course (and as if that was a proven fact) to which I'll respond that I'm no friend of Google, I think they have become a dangerous monopolist, but I'll also consider them innocent of collaborating with the NSA until they are proven guilty.
Re: (Score:2)
Yup, because nothing says "trust" like search results based off of government mandates, right?
Re: (Score:2)
But this represents an existential threat
Nonsense. One of the ways that corporations are different from real people is that you can split them into parts without killing them.
So we'd have AdSearchGoogle, headed by Larry Page, and ServiceGoogle, headed by Sergey Brin. AdSearchGoogle would be prohibited for 5 years to favor search results pointing to ServiceGoogle, and that's it.
Also, Google doesn't have to stop serving them, just stop doing business there.
Googles business is advertisement. Their services are excuses for showing you advertisement. In this business, these two things are pretty much the same thing.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
It's among the worst nationalistic hogwash misconceptions ever, easily on par with North Korea rambling about its moon base.
Pretending that the EU is a singular nation in the way that the US or North Korea are is itself "hogwash".
Re: (Score:2)
It's among the worst nationalistic hogwash misconceptions ever, easily on par with North Korea rambling about its moon base.
Pretending that the EU is a singular nation in the way that the US or North Korea are is itself "hogwash".
Who ever made that claim and how is it even relevant? What matter to Google (and any other company engaging in anti capitative behaviour) is that far as anti-trust issues are concerned the EU is a single entity.
Re: (Score:2)
You need to go back to reading comprehension 101. The part that's nationalistic about the GP post is USA nationalism, not european.
Re: (Score:3)
Population count (507 mio. vs. 319 mio.) and GDP (18.4 trio. US$ vs. 16.8 trio. US$).
Given their superior regulatory environment, why does the EU only make less than 70% per-capita of what the US makes? Especially given that many US-headquartered companies are recognizing most of their revenue in Ireland.
Re:In an unrelated news item... (Score:4, Insightful)
Population count (507 mio. vs. 319 mio.) and GDP (18.4 trio. US$ vs. 16.8 trio. US$).
Given their superior regulatory environment, why does the EU only make less than 70% per-capita of what the US makes? Especially given that many US-headquartered companies are recognizing most of their revenue in Ireland.
Because the EU added several Eastern European nations as members who were, and to some extent still are, recovering from two world wars and 50 years as vassal states of the Soviet Union. Man of these countries are suffering through the usual corruption and political instability issues that plague all young democracies. Just try to imagine that the USA admitted a few dysfunctional South American countries with broken economies and a few tens of millions of poor working class citizens as new states of your union. The per capita economic output of the USA would take a bit of a nosedive. The reason that most US-headquartered companies are recognising their revenue in Ireland is because they are dodging taxes, the EU as a whole does not benefit from that because their corporate slime balls are doing the same thing. The only ones benefitting from the now famous 'double Irish' tax dodge are corrupt Irish politicians.
Re: (Score:2)
Your numbers may very well be true, but the U.S. leads in per capita consumer spending. [wikipedia.org] That means Americans spend more money on products per person than any other country (except the UAE, strangely enough). In contrast, the number for most of Western Europe is around 60% of the U.S.
This is why the U.S. is often considered a special market (consumer products-wise) separate from the rest of the world. The only other market that's considered special is China, but only because of its growth potential due to sh
Re: (Score:3)
but the U.S. leads in per capita consumer spending.
Which, as a per capita value is again dependent on the population number for total value, and the population of the EU is 60% larger.
But the U.S. (and U.S. companies) does not need Europe to sustain businesses tied to consumer products.
Strangely, they seem to think otherwise, because they're going to great efforts to do business in Europe.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm a little confused how your answer is a response to "Europe disappeared from the worldwide web." What you're replying to is a joke that google would get rid of all Europe links in retaliation, not a nationalistic claim that Google should abandon all business in EU nations. It's like you're deeply offended by something nobody is actually saying.
Re: (Score:2)
China is much less connected to the world and especially the language barrier is massive. There's more to language than making a translation. Why do you think Facebook has almost no traction in Russia? It's not that they couldn't find someone who writes kyrillic.
Re: (Score:2)
google will make available certain search results and all will be google, i mean good
Re: (Score:2)
Who's gonna make us - you?
Re: (Score:2)
Why are you hitting yourself France? Why do you keep hitting yourself?
Re: (Score:2)
Not before Monsanto found a market for their products feeding third-world European nations.
X^D
Re: (Score:2)
switching search engines has no cost (Score:2, Informative)
I stopped using Google long ago, and now block all their known IP addresses.
Is somebody forcing people in the EU to use Google? If they don't want to use it, why don't they just... not? There's no possibility of lock in: you can just point your browser to any search engine you want, and away you go. This isn't a problem that needs government intervention.
Starve the beast, and it will die.
Re: (Score:2)
Was somebody forcing people to buy anything from Standard Oil? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
What's so special about Google? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What's so special about Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
Kept on a leash. Lets be honest here, the ONLY thing that keeps someone from using another competing search engine is nothing at all. The only reason people use Google is because it's better, the minute they stop being better and people will quit using it. I don't consider it much of a monopoly when the barrier to entry is almost nothing.
I don't particularly like them fronting their own service but again, no one is forcing anyone to use Google. It's not even the default search engine for the predominant desktop system! This appears to be being driven by the German politicians who are bowing to their own content industry to try to force google to give them a piece of their search business.
I can't help but feel that this entire push is slimy corruption politics typical to Europe where they try to protect local businesses and harm foreign ones using dubious legal means which are often against WTO agreements.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah a lot of it is politics but you have to admit it is very difficult for anyone to get off the ground because whenever anyone comes up with something marginally better, usually for a specialized subject (like say flights), Google puts their own version of the same at the top of the Google search results and effectively attempts to use their current dominance in normal web search to completely eviscerate the newcomer's traffic. A nasty "secret" of the search industry is most people will only hit the first
Re: (Score:2)
Yea I don't like it either but it's still not a impediment to alternative businesses IMO. Google might control advertising on Google and affiliated sites but they hardly control all advertising. And the most effective advertising is still not on the web, it's local.
The reason Google dominates these other markets is often their solution is better, easier to use and charges less than competitors. In all their years of dominance they've done one thing continually and that's to drive prices down, not up. As an
Re: (Score:3)
I hear this a lot but I don't see this. I search Google by famous stock ticker names, and I always get Yahoo finance results as the top result. Google finance is 3rd or later, second is either "advice" from bloomberg or the company's own website.
Re: (Score:3)
Everyone does it. It's called protectionism, and no country is guilt-free. It's a matter of how smartly it's done. This move? Stupid. Picking a fight with Google (or even trash talking, which this really is) is a really dumb idea. Nothing's really going to come out of this, except for maybe a bit of egg on some world leader's face at a Google-hosted party. Toppling democratically-elected regimes in unstable regions? Brilliant. Chances of success are almost a hundred percent, and the trade benefits are treme
Re: (Score:2)
What keeps people using Google is that it puts its grubby little search boxes in all the major default locations. Face it, most people use the first text entry field they see, regardless of if it's a search box or not. And when it doesn't respond like they think it should, they say it's broken, rather than accept that they typed words into the wrong textbox.
Do not confuse ordinary people with the elite here at slashdot. We know which search engine we use, and we know the differences between them
Re:What's so special about Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
The only barrier to entry is a good search engine that turns out results people want. It's not that hard, but it's far to easy to want to screw up those results to boost revenue, something yahoo was notorious for. Microsoft's biggest expenses related to search were advertising (such as buying Yahoo's search business) and trying to convince people they could be trusted, so far they've mostly failed at both. Even at that Bing is still not as good at returning results as Google is. Maybe that's because Google's entire company is devoted to search and Yahoo and Microsoft are devoted to other things with search being a second class citizen in the company.
You might like putting people in jars but I don't, please don't attempt to classify my political leanings by putting me in a jar, particularly one I despise. The problem with your argument is that the total dominance of Google as you claim could be replaced overnight by people typing a different URL in the bar. There is no barrier to entry other than excellence in search. What I see in search is a very functional and competitive market place. Google messes up once and the lions at their door will eat their market-share in a matter of months. The total lack of barrier's to entry, the ease with which consumers can switch and the fact that prices are falling indicates a healthy free-market, even if one of the players is dominant. All regulations will do in a situation like this is break the functioning market. I'm all for regulating markets, just not doing it to ones that are functioning relatively freely.
European regulations should be focusing on the edges of the market where Google is trying to manipulate things, such as forcing them to randomize product listing instead of always listing their own first. Or making sure they don't turn their Android system into a vehicle to mobile control (but by all reports Europe has a healthier mobile competition than the US with a functional player in Microsoft). Or even leveraging their android wear or android car to gain control of other markets. Again though the touch should be light, by all accounts these markets are free and functional. Overly heavy regulation is as damaging as no regulation at all.
Re: (Score:2)
And if Google even hesitates or tries to leverage search in a way consumers don't like those very competitors will eat them alive so quickly it would make your head spin.
If everyone on the planet used duck-duck-go tomorrow and for the rest of the month Google would be in very serious trouble.
Re: (Score:2)
Truly, the only way to be able to determine results people want is by having people using it more and often.
But you get diminishing returns. I doubt there's much additional value from a trillion searches over a billion searches, especially once the data gets a bit stale.
Re: (Score:3)
I had heard of poor reading comprehension, but not understanding your own statement? You take the cake. Look, "barrier to entry" doesn't matter to Microsoft and Yahoo - they have already entered. What you are referring to while calling it "barrier to entry" is actually "barrier to becoming the top player".
Free market does NOT depend on this being low, nor does a free market cause it to be low. This barrier being low does a world of bad for everyone.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't entirely disagree, but before they have a go at kicking around Google, there's a whole host of larger corporations with a much longer and broader history of abuse that need a kicking first. That they don't seem to be interested in taking them on suggests that the "benefit of the market or the people" isn't the primary goal behind this little initiative.
Re: (Score:2)
But when are we going to see them go after other huge companies abusing their market share?
They do. The anti-trust part of the EU is actually one of the few that's working pretty good. And before the usual stupid comments come running: They go against EU companies as much as against USA companies.
Re:What's so special about Google? (Score:4)
> The EU seems to have a chip on their shoulders about Google.
Because Microsoft pays better. Just business, nothing personal.
During the OOXML, Microsoft was caught red-handed giving bribes to European officials.
When somebody sticks it to Microsoft, Microsoft often uses the same tactic against it's competitors. Remember Europe saying MS had a monopoly? A few bribes later, and viola, MS competitors have a monopoly.
BTW: I think US politicians are even worse.
Standards (Score:2)
A company should be abled to offer any services they want, but they should have to make sure they don't create lock-ins, eg through their own proprietary standards. If whattsapp users could communicate with skype chat users, we'd get rid of lots of problems. Its like with energy. There are lots of devices, but they all work with one energy grid, at least with the EU connector. And still, there are only a few large energy companies running most of the power plants. But when I have to buy new devices the mome
Re: (Score:3)
And Google is happy to let you take your data out of them.
https://www.google.com/setting... [google.com]
Want out of the Google experience? Here is all your data available to take to your new service.
I can not think of another company that offers anything remotely similar to this.
Re: (Score:2)
Fantastic link.
They have 2.36GB of data on me.
At least this is reassuring...
"It may take some time before it is ready to download. Don't worry, we'll email you when it's ready."
I'm not sure how to respond, as well as process the data load.
Re: (Score:2)
Fantastic link.
They have 2.36GB of data on me.
At least this is reassuring...
"It may take some time before it is ready to download. Don't worry, we'll email you when it's ready."
I'm not sure how to respond, as well as process the data load.
How much of that is your Gmail?
Re: (Score:2)
Why does Europe use Google? (Score:3)
they should create their own GNU/Linux search engine, maybe out of Finland. Surely they'd be good at it.
EU is getting too powerful (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Time to break the EU into several different countries.
According the Pew institute study [pewglobal.org], this is what the People of EU member states want. We also have the 2005 referendums in France and Netherlands that told us People had enough of this mess. That votes have been ignored.
Give us democracy, break up the EU!
Re: (Score:2)
That's because the EU is really an economic concern trying to masquerade as a country. It originally started as the European Coal and Steel Community. It has always been about economics. A handful of rich and powerful countries benefit from a common market and currency. Countries that would probably be better off outside of the Eurozone won't leave it because the rich and powerful therein benefit. Well monied interests calling the shots is hardly a uniquely American phenomenon.
Europe won't truly unite
Re: (Score:2)
Simple solution Google will implement... (Score:2)
All these search terms are yours, except "Europe" (Score:2)
I would like to see Google go into direct competition with the EU. Incorporate as a sovereign nation within Silicon Valley, in the same way as Vatican City. Issue its own currency. Build California a nice set of high-speed trains. Everybody wins.
All your data belongs to us! (Score:2)
When the big boys don't get to play with the toys of the other big boys, then it's time for the boys to become men and show some muscles. This is all a dance, play with us (aka give us access to that wonderful database that knows everything about every individual out there) and we'll leave you alone.
Good (Score:2)
It's about time. Google has become the de facto gatekeeper for the web and have no real competition. That makes Google a problem.
Also hahaha at the people saying Europe should be blacklisted, in other news, Google just lost access to a market of a half billion wealthy consumers.
EU is getting Lame (Score:2)
The EU thinks too much of themselves. Google is not an EU company. The EU doesn't have any control over Google. If the EU doesn't watch out Google may buy the EU and put them down, discontinuing them in an end of life product cycle as they've done with some other annoying things. Bugs get squashed.
Re: (Score:2)
With that amount of bullshit flying out of your figurative mouth, you could fertilize a whole field.
Sure thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me know when the EU get's around to slapping Apple for browser bundling and not providing an install screen to select alternatives.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think you understand what a monopoly is, or how antitrust works. Hint: simply bundling applications is not an antitrust violation.
EU citisens are skeptic too (Score:4, Informative)
As EU citizen, i can only say this is received with a lot of skepticism here too. And the usual anti-EU sentiment.
While i'm pretty `pro-EU`, i indeed think this is bullshit. Yes, Google has some sort of monopoly, however, monopolies are only a problem when abused. I don't see that abuse part. Also, there are plenty alternatives, however, Google is the biggest simply because they are the best at what they do. For them it's core business. For MS and Yahoo it's not their core business.
Anyways. it will blow over i guess. They prefer to launch this kind of bullshit ideas instead of worrying the things they really should worry about; like unemployment rates, poverty, eastern relationships, etc etc.
Good luck with that EU (Score:4, Interesting)
No seriously... try it. All your bitching and moaning accomplished with MS was a decades long circle jerk. Exactly what do you think is going to happen if you try this with google?
They'll appeal... and then appeal the appeal... and so on... and when we all die of old age they'll still be appealing and screwing you around until no one even remembers what it was about anymore.
Here is the brass tacks... The EU sees a big rich american company doing business in the EU and they're not paying EU taxes. So they're going to fuck around with it until they figure out how to get money from it.
personally, I think Hungry had the right idea... just tax bandwidth... do I ACTUALLY think that is a good idea? no, it is retarded. But it would neatly remove the idiots in government that see everyone making money without paying them as a problem.
Re: (Score:2)
On the plus side, those companies are not paying taxes in the US either.
To what end? (Score:2)
For one thing: Will they outlaw "all the rest" from making their own search engine? They could even hire "Google" as the back end.
Plus: this doesn't seem to be a monopoly break up (Google is not a monopoly according to Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, whatever apple defaults to, etc); but it does seem designed to put Google at a competitive disadvantage to Yahoo and Microsoft who offer pretty much all the same services as well as search.
Google Acquires the EU (Score:3)
EU parliament power (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Yet another non binding resolution from EU parliament. This is a fake parliament: if cannot start a EU directive and does not decide on the budget.
Never let fact get in the way of a good group naval gazing session.
This isn't Soviet Russia (Score:2)
First, the EU is a joke. But even if it wasn't, who are they to tell a company not to favor its own products? It is a socialist agenda, and goes against the very core of capitalism.
They can't claim it's anti competitive, there are still a lot of search engines out there. If they did as good a job as Google, maybe customers would have used them more. The fact is that Bing is also popular enough, and there are a few other search engines that are slowly gaining in popularity.
How and why? (Score:2)
They can "plan" and "call for" all they want, but EU has no authority over a US company and banning it from doing business would violate trade treaties. They can certainly set rules for doing business that apply equally to all foreign and domestic players. Why don't they focus on that instead of useless and inflammatory rhetoric? It seems that Europe has it's own tea party.
As to "why" part, where is the lock in? All major browsers including Chrome support a choice of search engines. Internet Explorer has Bi
The EU's Quaero (Score:2)
Isn't it supposed to be the Google-killer?
Wait (Score:2)
Where were these assclowns 10 years ago when Microsoft was actively doing evil (and relevant)?
Brussels Hotels Win (Score:2)
So will the local manufacturers of brown paper bags.
Google and Bing lose.
You'll (/.) work it out - eventually. (hint: another EU backhander bidding war - that'll continue until MS runs out of money they can't take back to the US).
As usual (Score:2)
They just want as much lobby money from Goggle as they receive from the competition.
Re: (Score:3)
Moreover, if Nokia wasn't run by absolute incompetents, they'd still be a huge player in the smartphone market.
But they farted around with OSes, libraries, and waffled and couldn't decide themselves out of a wet paper bag being while pushed off a cliff. To top it off, the board decided to welcome Microsoft's cukoo-egg into their nest because "OH MY GOD A BILLION DOLLARS."
Google is where it is because a lot of companies are run by boards that are more interested in feathering their own nests instead of what
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It actually hurt my brain to read your reply.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
--
BMO
Re:Google doesn't have a monopoly on ANYTHING. (Score:5, Insightful)
My point is that the EU is a bunch of arrogant idiots who have no business telling an American company to split up.
Like it or not, idiots or not, they do have such business, simply because your poor little "american company" is no such thing. It's an international corporation that was once founded in america, but now does business all over the world, including within the EU and actually quite a lot of it.
Re: (Score:2)
The EU uses a mafia style shakedown program against not only against US companies but any successful international companies who have the temerity of being successful. It's time those countries with true power to give them a glimpse of the potential downsides of their actions. We can kick things off by sending them a bill for US military services to be paid in advance. And their demonstrated incompetence in dealing with Russia will only guarantee they will need those services in the not so distant future th
Re: (Score:3)
The EU uses a mafia style shakedown program
Get some help for your paranoia issues.
The EU has become so fucking corporation friendly over the past two decades, we have rising poverty in all developed EU countries, falling real wages, unemployment, high percentages of temporary employment and are busy destroying the middle class that kept Europe stable for six decades. All in the name of protecting banksters and corporate profits, who are breaking records yearly.
Accusing the EU of shaking down corporations is orwellian.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually a great many Europeans who were fleeing the cesspool of Europe fought on the winning side of the US civil war. Says quite a lot that immigrants right off the boats were willing to line up in rows across open fields and take turns firing at each rather than continue living in Europe. And don't confuse inept troops with the inept politicians who force them to fight with one hand tied behind their backs. And can you provide any actual facts that support your friendly fire accusations? If not I sugges
Re: (Score:2)
If they were firing at each other, how could they have been fighting on the same side?
And in a response to a post about friendly fire, no less... Fish, barrel--meet gun.
Meanwhile, I humbly suggest that you try a bit harder not to contradict yourself 3 or 4 times in the same post.
Re: (Score:3)
Yugoslavia was no threat to EU, ever. It was a civil war, and within Europe many people consider it a mistake to become involved.
As for Putin - you can think what you want, he's never expressed any desires to expand into Europe. That he got nervous about Ukraine - well, after Kuba you americans shouldn't be talking. What would you do if there was a revolution in Mexico or Canada and the new government is strongly pro-Russia with open, direct and very vocal russian support? Or chinese. Or both. You'd sit on
Re: (Score:2)
Nah, Tom's been this way from the beginning.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Successful companies eventually pass a threshold in which their ambitions stop being beneficial to the rest of the economy, and start being exploitative of it. Any company, if too successful, will eventually cause more harm than good.
Slippery-sloping the obvious responses to this observation can cause great economic harm as well. But that doesn't change the facts. Monopolism is bad for the economy, and robs everyone of the benefits that justify capitalism.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. And it's nice to know they have the balls to. This motion may or may not be a good idea, but simply bringing it up serves to remind everyone who is in charge here: voters rather than shareholders.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Silly question, but is a company which tries very hard to pay no tax on its profits a "legitimate business" or a leech on society?
Yes, I know they do neat stuff, as do many other companies. Yes, many other large companies legally avoid taxes. They're leeches too.
Yours sincerely, someone who likes his tax-funded healthcare and education systems. [can you guess I'm not in the US?]
Re: (Score:2)
Google can complain about "youtube losing money" while keeping ads price on youtube so low that competitors starve., cough.
Google has too much power for "free open market" to be able to "regulate" it, OK?
EU has both legal and MORAL right to dictate anyone in EU market how to behave IN EU.
The "bunch of idiots" forced phone manufacturers to support USB charging, mobile providers to drop roaming charges, to allow you to switch mobile provider while keeping your old phone number, they forced Microsoft to un-bun
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
What part of this is not true?
Fact has nothing to do with trolling. The way you write and speak makes you a troll.
Notice how the one comment that got modded insightful is full of factual information, and your opinion of comparison to Russia (backed by a factual piece of information) that doesn't sound like a 2 year old name calling.
Re: (Score:2)
You tell me how that does not constitute Soviet behavior.
Seriously? Nobody is holding a gun to your head and the EU member states are free to leave any time they wish.
Again, totally nothing factually wrong with that. If it were not for the Americans, all of Europe would either suffer under the Nazis or under the Soviets.
Really? All of Europe you say? Even Great Britain? Finland?
Are you an American? If you are I wish you'd STFU; you're making the rest of us look bad. WW2 was a team effort. Could the Allies have beaten the Germans without the Russians? Possibly; we did in WW1 after the Russians quit. The butcher's bill would have been a lot higher though. The west (particularly the United States and Canad
Re: Google doesn't have a monopoly on ANYTHING. (Score:3)
And I am sure you would agree with me had you heard an American use that same argument to try to justify some heinous crime in Europe.
Also, is it just me or do Shakrai and sabri look an awful lot like sock puppets?
Re: (Score:3)
What part of this is not true? The EU is operating like a socialist federation these days: they shove EU laws (up to and including a constitution) through their member states' throat and enforce them
You have no idea how EU politics works.
What's being "shoved down member states throats" are almost all laws that the national politicians wanted, but couldn't get through locally because of popular resistance and the media eating them alive. So they push it up to the EU, it comes back a few year later, thanks to short public memory they now claim they have no choice, it's an EU mandate, and they get the laws they wanted.
Re:Google doesn't have a monopoly on ANYTHING. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, but the EUSSR doesn't seem to understand that an American corporation has nothing to do with European communists. They should go and re-read their history books and remember how close all of Europe was to speaking either German or Russian.
I could have moderated your drivel to hell but that wouldn't help much.
The EU commision can't tell US companies to do anything but they can set conditions for allowing them to operate within the EU. It's called sovereignty and the US does it too all the time. Having a beef with virtual or actual monopolies is not exactly a communist thing either. A monopoly is a direct attack on the free market and therefore upsets true free market believers.
The US have a long, although not resent, history of cracking down on monopolies. The Standard Oil case is the poster child for this kind of policy.
Re:Google doesn't have a monopoly on ANYTHING. (Score:5, Insightful)
The EU commision can't tell US companies to do anything but they can set conditions for allowing them to operate within the EU. It's called sovereignty and the US does it too all the time. Having a beef with virtual or actual monopolies is not exactly a communist thing either. A monopoly is a direct attack on the free market and therefore upsets true free market believers.
Finally at least a reply that contains an actual argument. Thanks for that.
I actually agree with you. The EU can set conditions for allowing a company to operate within the EU. However, they EU should not be in a position to split up a privately owned enterprise. If they feel that Google has too big of a market share, than they should encourage competition. Which, BTW, there is a lot of. Bing, Yahoo, Duckduckgo, Ask.com (yikes) and many others.
In the case of Microsoft's anti-trust case, there was no such thing. Most people and business needed a Windows PC because (at the time) it was pretty much the only thing that would be compatible with your neighbor's PC. MS controlled the desktop. Switching required a installing a new operating system, and most people didn't even know how to do that let alone that they were even aware of alternatives.
Google does not control your search engine. Internet Explorer defaults to Bing, and soon Firefox will default to Yahoo. It is easy to switch default search engines, all you need is to change a bookmark. However, I prefer Google simply because it's better and a lot of people will do the same.
Having a better product than others doesn't necessarily mean you're an illegal monopoly. Google's perceived monopoly can be gone in six months, as soon as a competitor brings a better product.
Look at Myspace vs Facebook, for example.
Re: (Score:2)
Having better product never means you're an illegal monopoly.
Leveraging your monopolistic position to fight competitors in other areas does.
And exactly that is what evil EU is after.
Re: (Score:2)
A monopoly is a direct attack on the free market and therefore upsets true free market believers.
There is nothing inherently wrong with a monopoly. If I build a widget that no other company cares to build - I have a monopoly and that is perfectly ok. The problem comes when I abuse my monopoly position in the widget market to either stifle competing widget manufacturers or unfairly benefit my sprocket offerings - which is essentially what the EU Commission is accusing Google of doing. Does Google do this? I don't know and honestly I don't care. But, then again, I don't spend a whole lot of time using
Re: (Score:2)
This is an argument from a monolingual person.
Well, I hate to break the news to you but I'm far from monolingual. I speak English, Dutch, German, a bit of French (albeit so bad that even the waiters in Paris reply in English) and a bit of Albanian. And I've lived in the EU as well as the US.
Re: (Score:3)
What EU really wants to achieve is to break America ...
Nice conspiracy theory but we can't even get along internally over here. Herding all the cats into a unified, secret attack on the US would require a coordinated act by several deities.
I'm afraid any break up is self inflicted. The US is already even more fractured than EU.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Practically, the EU branch of their offices needs to be little more than a cubicle with a lawyer and desk.
But oddly enough, on paper it seems a huge portion of Google "exists" in the EU, legally speaking. As far as revenues and expenses go, a huge portion of Google's revenues and expenses are "generated" there, (specifically, Ireland), thanks to an international tax dodge.
Re: (Score:2)
Monster market share == Monopoly
Re: (Score:2)
Oh look, someone on Slashdot who has absolutely no knowledge of economics, but thinks they do. You hardly ever see that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Coca-Cola only has one line of business, and that is soft drinks. Eventually all one trick ponies meet the same fate.
Yeah. Right. Um.
Re: (Score:2)
They also are making a fair amount of revenue selling services. For example, my employer had so many problems with Microsoft Sharepoint that they switched to Google Drive. I use both Google and Microsoft's services. Microsoft's (at least Email) leaves a lot to be desired.
Google is also in the transaction business like Paypal and Amazon as well as hosting services.
For another organization I'm looking into Google services now to handle documents and email.