Google fined $4b after Euro court snips 5% off earlier price The European General Court has imposed a €4.125 billion (about $4.13 billion) fine on Google, largely upholding an earlier ruling on the ad-tech giant's anticompetitive practices in mobile search. The court confirmed [PDF] the European Commission's decision that Google foisted unlawful restrictions on manufacturers of devices …
Possibly. It's been rumbling on for years though, so maybe a small share will be doled out if the UK had some involvement in the gathering of useful evidence while sill in the EU. At best, it might be a tiny reduction in the ongoing monies still being paid to the EU for various schemes we were involved in, especially the pensions.
I'm no fan of Google (I try to use it as little as possible, and have an iPhone, Firefox on my Linux PC, and use DDG as my default search) but saying they are an enemy to the world is more than a little hyperbolic.
If Google was erased tomorrow, what would its replacement be? Is everyone supposed to use an iPhone? OK that's not necessary, phones can be made using Google-free Android, but who is going to take over the significant expense of developing Android? Might it be some company who is only willing to shoulder that expense knowing they can leverage Android to make a profit - perhaps from advertising?
Who is going to fill the sizeable vacuum left behind when Google Search and Youtube go poof? Probably another company or companies that see providing those services as a way to make money, though hopefully DDG would claim a bigger search share than today. Maybe Bing finally has its day in the sun, and no one is any better off.
Who is going to update all those Chrome browsers that will have security holes continue to be discovered with no one to fix them? I'd love for Firefox to fill that vacuum but in reality almost all the Windows PCs will end up using Edge and Microsoft will take over development of Chromium. You really think we'll be any better off than last time Microsoft had a browser monopoly?
Android has been turning into a sloppy iOS clone in the worst possible way. MicroSD cards are crippled, privacy controls still don't apply to Google, and just adjusting the brightness makes it look like you're trying to claw through your phone's screen. The world needs a fork.
It's hard to envision what $4 billion means to Google. That's god-like money. It was more helpful when The Register used a time unit of revenue to describe megacorp penalty fines, like "Google fined 5.6 days of revenue."
> adjusting the brightness makes it look like you're trying to claw through your phone's screen
Swipe down the notifications panel and tap what you want the brightness set to. In what way are you finding that difficult?
At least Android phones have a power button. I recently recieved an iPhone for work and had to Google how to turn it off. I, a developer, an electrical engineer and a user of IT products for over 40 years had to Google HOW TO TURN IT OFF! Now THAT is garbage UI.
You're probably not on stock Android if anything after Android 9 works well. The brightness was moved to a second level quick actions menu. That's two one-fingered swipes down or one two fingered swipe down from the top. Neither one is very reliable because what seems to be a power saving trick with the touch screen sampling.
"I, a developer, an electrical engineer and a user of IT products for over 40 years had to Google HOW TO TURN IT OFF! Now THAT is garbage UI."
I would have thought that someone with your background would have figured it out. Like maybe, most of the rest of the worlds population that use an iPhone?
It's rather obvious I would have thought. Press 2 buttons to turn it of and then use the slider. Much better than a long press on the power button that my shitty Nokia 7.2 uses which more than once has managed to turn itself off when in my pocket.
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