EU Advocate General advises top court to toss Google appeal against €4B fine

A European court has advised [PDF] that Google's appeal against a ruling that found it had abused its market dominance should be dismissed. In 2018, the European Union General Court imposed a fine on Google of €4.343 billion, arguing it had abused its dominant position in the mobile phone market. The court said Google imposed …

[Someone Else]

What was old is new again

Google imposed anticompetitive contractual restrictions on manufacturers and network operators by effectively saying they could only get the Play Store app on devices if they also pre-installed Google Search and Chrome.

Where have we heard that before? Hmmm...oh yes! Micros~1 did the exact same thing with Windows and Insecure Exposer. And IIRC, the Euro court found against them, too.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: What was old is new again

...and likewise the "can't sell devices with competing (or no) OS installed" too.

[Dinanziame]

Doesn't seem Google has a leg to stand on, but I suppose when the fine is €4B, it's worth paying a few millions in lawyer fees just in case you can get a 10% reduction

[IGotOut]

It's less the reduction in fines, it's the being found guilty that really scares them.

When multiple countries find you guilty of anti competitive behaviour, it gets easier and easier for others to follow.

[Pascal Monett]

I have a better idea

Make Google pay, then discuss the issue for years.

It's not like Google doesn't have the money . . .

[I could be a dog really]

Re: I have a better idea

No, very bad idea.

It's easy to use the "they can afford it" argument in this case, but where do you draw the threshold ? Say you or I were found guilty of something we were sure we didn't do, and fined. If you apply the same rule, and it has to be the same for everyone, then we'd be stuck with finding a potentially large amount of money - perhaps having to sell assets in order to get it. If, some years later, it turns out that we were innocent after all, then we can't really be compensated for the state/legal system having stuffed us - and we can't recover the assets we had to sell.

Of course, shortening the process significantly would help. It's hard to see how some of these cases take as long as they do.

[druck]

Should we be celebrating the landmark that fines have now gone over 2^32?