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The record fines were levied on US firms.

Are you suggesting that it's legitimate to fine US companies on antitrust grounds to supplement tax revenue?

Don't let anyone tell you that spreading FUD and misinformation doesn't work, Google has every right to do whatever they want with a domain they own but DDG kept pushing the conspiracy theory that it's all about them and it worked.

It's hard not to make the connection between this example of a clueless self entitled tantrum and the naked resentment towards a US rival by a euro bigwig complete with the instinct to seek government subsidizes and assistance against said US rival with the scrutiny US technology companies are receiving in the region.

Right, so Google develops Android at great expense, they release it as an open source project and now they’re supposed to make even less money from it?

If you think you see similarities between this fine and the microsoft case you should also consider the differences.

For all intents and purposes the market is split 50/50 between Android and iOS, and the fact that Android can be competitive with iOS is largely due to Google’s conditions, as by ensuring quality and consistency they spared Android from the fate of the desktop linux and turned it into a mass market product, not to mention the whole free and open source thing, which is a big deal that is seemingly being brushed aside (what about all the forks?!).

In any other context finnig an open source project for antitrust violations is absurd.

They keep hitting Google with these record fines as there is no political cost for hammering Google in the EU it’s all profit, they get fawning headlines from an approving press and quench the bloodthirst of the politician there who don’t even try to hide their distaste for US tech firms and Google in particular (try and look up their quotes), they can talk up the benefits of free trade all they want and complain about this tariff or that but there is no denying that much of what the EU does is try and hamstring US tech companies.

P.S.

A recent indicator as to the political nature of this action, the fine announcement was delayed until after Trump's visit to europe: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-google-antitrust/eu-go...

Tell that to Amazon and their Fire devices and to all the Android forks in China.

Most likely they just want a federal law to deal with instead of having to make unworkable carve-ups for illinois and texas.

This unsurprisingly provided an ideal preamble for the NYT to try and reinforce the unsubstantiated claim that tech firms swayed the election and salivate about how this might open the door to further regulation. To keep things overboard newspapers should provide a disclaimer that they are reporting on business rivals when they write about tech firms.

The EU is targeting US firms as a protectionist measure, you can read transcripts of their politicians' grandstanding and parroting local lobbyist to get the picture, they're not shy about it.

I really don't understand the self destructive desire to domestically pile on our tech firms while they are being shutout of the Chinese market by the government there which apparently appreciates the importance of these firms so much as to support their local companies financially, politically, and intellectually and on the other front the EU is using every tool at its disposal to hamstring US tech firms.

Some comments here and elsewhere indicate that some pitchforks wielding folks are conflating this issue with the outcomes of recent political contests, the source of this confusion is poor-old media companies that keep feigning powerlessness while conveniently pointing the finger at business rivals.

How is infinite scrolling not just a logical evolution of regular scrolling? and using red for notification indicators isn't just a design convention that was borrowed from the real world?

All these outlets reporting on social media/app/smartphone addictions should really consider mentioning that these theories aren't supported by research but mainly the melodramatic testimonies of former employees with messianic complex.

Who says they don't? they've listed the ways in the linked blogpost:

https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/ensuring-..., https://support.google.com/a/answer/7281227?hl=en, https://support.google.com/googleapi/answer/7394288#ensure-a..., https://developers.google.com/terms/api-services-user-data-p...

Certain people have determined to catch google in the wrong here even if that isn't the case so they are conveniently framing the situation and omitting key details.

Not to mention that having the user abdicate all responsibility to their actions in any situation is infantilizing and stupid.

They don't "divvy up personal emails", you do, by clicking the "allow" button under an explicit permission screen (https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog-publish-prod/ima...).

And you might give that access for reasons you deem useful, like CRMs and what not.

Are people really not getting this? because I'm starting to think that this is an elaborate prank on my expense.

What's the accusation? that they provide an API?

The only controversy here is that of shoddy (and malicious) reporting.

'I’m pretty sure that no one who took a job at Google thought, "I’m going to work for a defense contractor."'

This person can't possibly speak for all other employees. There are many people who got interested in tech at least partly from exposure to popular scifi tropes such a weaponized robots.

That is the problem with this kind of reporting, they seek and only publish the people that confirm the editors assignments; the disgruntled ex-employee or the self promoting activist and they avoid putting things in perspective and show that these "movements" are minuscule in the scheme of things.

How do they define what "selling personal data" means? Does that mean the the law affects equifax and not facebook for example? and what if a company which collects data is sold to another company or its assets were sold during bankruptcy does that count as selling personal data?

Idiocy. The motive is to hamstring some of our most innovative companies which by itself is baffling and of course the collateral damage is the extra overhead and lawyers inflicted on all businesses big and small.

The desire to imitate the euros in their efforts in making it as hard as possible for our companies to operate there is beyond stupid.

California ballot initiatives like all referendums must be eradicated and the fact that a california real estate developer (the source of all that is wrong in the state) straight after killing recent zoning reform is using a ballot initiative to blackmail the assembly into passing this law makes it worse.

I don't care what you're 'leaning' towards or what you can do without, this is about what's good for the nation.

This kind of legislation is not pertinent to the average citizen and this whole debate is being conducted in an environment of hysteria around the cambridge analytica episode which is being fueled by political opportunism.

1. Regardless of politics, legislating for net neutrality and privacy on the state level is just silly.

2. This won’t “reign in” the big firms it’ll shield them from competition.

3. At a time when China is totally protecting their tech firms from outside competition and providing them with stolen IP and the EU is using every tool in their disposal to go after US tech companies the last thing our lawmaker should do is try and stab our tech firms in the back.

No law breaking is involved here, they have no cause for this inquiry.

They are also based on massive political will that distorts the interpretation of the law and economic understanding and turns them into weapons.

That's a dishonest argument, yeah these laws theoretically apply to everyone but they were designed specifically for and disportionately affect US companies. As for the "gaming the system" argument that doesn't comport with really either since these laws were introduced after the fact.

A Couple of things:

Mainstream news outlets on this side of the atlantic didn't do much reporting on this vote which might signal tacit support on their part (at least for the link payment portion of this thing which is frankly the sillies part) and that should shape everyone's understanding of their coverage of tech companies in general.

Second, it's hard not to notice that much of what the EU does is trying to hurt US tech companies be that: copyright, GDPR, antitrust, taxes, and many other initiatives the goals of which are to control and "punish" these companies. It's easy to complaint about silly steel tariffs while they keep enacting these trade barriers on US industry, the fact the the news media isn't making that connection brings it back to the first point.

The EU have come to the conclusion that they probably won't have a major internet company so they are willing to destroy the whole market to help legacy industries and assuage the anti American notions of their members.

Give it a rest already NYT.

1. they are mischaracterizing the nature of that "access".

2. they could've reported this tidbit in yesterday's story, clearly they are trying to squeeze every last drop from that pebble.

What's an example of that?

I wouldn't call them "crows" exactly, some of it is well meaning, but they are definitely being selfish about promoting their causes with disregard to the damage they might do to their employer.

Not exclusively.

It would be nice if Google employees just did their jobs instead of trying to sabotage their employer every other week.

... in the latest chapter of scapegoating internet firms for Trump's election.

Nor is Microsoft or Amazon. There aren't many clients out there the size of the DoD and the cloud business is all about locking in large clients.