Europe teases breaking up Google over ad monopoly

The European Commission (EC) believes Google may be violating antitrust rules by favoring its own ad tools at the expense of competitors and is considering whether it will have to break up the company to end the alleged self-preferencing. "Google controls both sides of the adtech market: sell and buy," said Margrethe Vestager …

[Anonymous Coward]

"a laughably consequential fine"

Whilst I would indeed laugh if google were hit with a consequential fine; usual usage leads me to expect the standard "a laughably INconsequential fine" phrasing, ... which is the more likely outcome, and is less likely to make me laugh. Which is it, I wonder? :-)

[Rich 2]

Zzzzzzzz

Any EU action will go something like….

- Spend the next 5 years “examining the evidence”

- Pause for a couple of years because …errrr…

- Establish a committee or something to discuss the findings

- Eventually raise the prospect of a fine

- Spend the next 3 years in court arguing

- By now Google will have changed whatever business practice it was that started the whole thing in the first place

- EU sets some piddly fine

- More court arguments and Google dragging it out a bit longer

- Google eventually pays the fine by which point nobody can actually remember what the original issue was and anyone who was effected by the previous “bad business practice” has long since closed shop

- Replace “Google” with the next tech company to misbehave and repeat

[John Hawkins]

Re: Zzzzzzzz

On the other hand if the EU ever managed to get around to getting something done, there'd be a lot of screaming and frothing of the mouth about abuse of power etc. Which might even be justified.

The current setup might not look like much, but it creates unnecessary work and expense for the companies in question and flags up a risk that their insurance companies probably regard as a justification for increasing the cost of the premiums paid etc.

So the process is the punishment, as it were, and I think I prefer this to the more direct method as that could easily get out of hand if the bureaucrats get a taste for it.

[Rick Deckard]

Re: Zzzzzzzz

- EU implodes and is wound up

[Ken G]

Re: Zzzzzzzz

Sounds like you're the one doing the winding up

[naive]

Re: Zzzzzzzz

Google will complain to Biden, and promise juicy campaign contributions and continuing suppression of republican and other conservative misinformation in its search results.

Biden will instruct the governor of the protectorate Europe to keep the locals in check.

After a few negotiations it is decided EU commission will hold a few show court cases, where google will be convicted to pay a fine of a few hundred million Euro's.

The companies and individuals who experienced damages as a result of the de-facto monopoly google holds over the market get nothing.

The conviction will not force google to change, which is no problem since part of the strategy was to delay everything into the late 2020's, and most victims of googles predatory behavior are driven out of business.

[lockt-in]

Re: Zzzzzzzz

I remember the time the EU punished Microsoft's IE abuse by making them show a Web Browser choice screen on Windows 7 for the next 5 years. Microsoft started doing this but then a few months later Microsoft release SP1, from then the Windows 7 with SP1 no longer showed the Web Browser choice screen. To this, the EU said "meh". Some punishment.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Zzzzzzzz

Didn't MS once introduce a feature to IIS web server, that rendered jagged text if it detected it was running on a non-MS browser.

[captain veg]

Re: Zzzzzzzz

As opposed to HMG doing precisely nothing at all.

-A.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Zzzzzzzz

Nick Clegg didn't do precisely nothing and I'm sure his successors hope to follow in his footsteps.

[CowHorseFrog]

Simple solution, jail time for the executives.

[Dinanziame]

Jail time for executives has happened a few times in the past (VW emissions scandal), but it's unlikely to happen here because you have to prove criminal intent; meaning they deliberately hid what they were doing because they knew it was illegal. By comparison, Google generally defends its anticompetitive behavior by saying "yeah of course we're doing that... why wouldn't we? It's good for the users"

[CowHorseFrog]

One in a 100 or 1000 is not good enough. It needs to be at least 99 out of 100 for proven crimes. Responsibilities for corporate leaders needs to have equivalent jail time for responsibilities and trust lost under their watch.

[John in Brisbane]

I appreciate that regulation needs to be conservative and methodical in order to minimally restrict the reasonable actions of people in an open society. These principles are timeless. But the systems used to enact these principles were created in an era when a google simple could not become so large so quickly. There needs to be a proactive aspect in such governance that is directed by public discussion and more direct forms of democratic direction.

[Neoc]

"He told The Register that he was referring to the Privacy Sandbox technology Google has been developing, which potentially obviates the need for a central ad exchange."

so... "we've been breaking the law, but don't punish us because we are developing a tool that will stop us from breaking the law again. Trust us. Would we lie to you?"

[Pascal Monett]

"it may have abused its dominance to favor its own AdX platform"

It may have.

What naïveté. How touching.

I'm sure the €5000 fine will be quite adequate to educate Google.

[Dinanziame]

Re: "it may have abused its dominance to favor its own AdX platform"

The EU has fined Google 8 billion Euros so far:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_cases_against_Google_by_the_European_Union

Likely some more billions this time again.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: "it may have abused its dominance to favor its own AdX platform"

For Google, that's pretty much "found down the back of the sofa" money. For the EU, it's even less a drop in the ocean. To us mere mortals, it's more than we can dream of :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "it may have abused its dominance to favor its own AdX platform"

It's enough for a division or geography to miss it's targets, which means no performance bonuses for management. What do you think is needed to change their behaviour?

[RyokuMas]

Bolted...

Horse... stable door...