rdjik

You actually think Google stores passwords in clear text and someone hacked them and grabbed 5M of them?!

It's not a "breach": http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2014/09/cleaning-up...

Nor is that tool needed for any sort of audit so stop using it to harvest addresses.

It's nowhere near advisable for anyone to submit their address to that box.

Notwithstanding the questionable reliability of this what is meant by "leaked"? a trove of phished credentials does not really qualify as a "leak".

Google isn't the gateway to the Internet not in any physical nor even metaphorical sense, it's Facebook were most folks spend most of their time, also the "promote their products above alternatives" is a loaded statement and accusation, when they show shopping results it's not their appliances they are selling, when show maps it's because it's a geographical query, and so on, and when they just show answers and not links it's because that is how search engines are supposed to work.

The perceived importance of privacy is irrelevant when the question is about competition, when other matters entirely are invoked to pressure or punish them then that is just plain old corruption.

The fact that Google search is a free service with no lock in and with many other free alternatives still stands. It's also strange that a search engine is a target of such hostility in the continent. No one is being prevented to visit any website or install any app they like.

Also the political aspect of this situation shouldn't be so easily dismissed, I don't see how tax or intangible privacy concerns have to do with the competitive question, this whole thing boils down to powerful newspaper publishers which have outsized influence on politicians seeking to punish Google, this is not unlike corrupt third world government behaviour.