Re: Google is headed for a Republican beatdown
I think they will find very soon that it stands for Google Does Pay Reparations. Those GDPR fines are coming...
Unfortunately they won't be very big. Because tosspot EU politicians know less than the sum of fuck all, they defined the MAXIMUM penalties as 4% of turnover. For a manufacturer, or commodity supplier that's really very, very bad news. If however you're a tech giant, that's noise. For Google's parent, their pre-tax profit is in the range of 20-25% of turnover. Realistically they'll get fined a fraction of the 4% anyway, so fines become simply a cost of doing business. Just like large banks everywhere, large US companies do what they want until they are ordered not to, and then pay any associated fines. These are simply a cost of doing business.
GDPR won't stop Google, Facebook and Amazon doing what the hell they like, unless and until the enforced penalties include imprisonment of directors and a legal prohibition on doing business until regulatory standards are met. There's few precedents for that, so don't hold your breath on anything changing in our lifetimes (squared).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
