The European Commission today fined Google €2.95 billion for abusing its dominant position in the advertising technology market, despite the threat of trade retribution from U.S President Donald Trump.
The American tech giant is alleged to have distorted the market for online ads by favoring its own services to the detriment of competitors, advertisers and online publishers, the EU executive said in a press release.
↫ Jacob Parry at Politico
Not only does Google have to pay a pretty hefty fine – for corporate standards, as it’s still peanuts when looking at Google’s revenue, because class justice is real – the company also has to submit a plan within 60 days detailing how it’s going to end the illegal behaviour. Of course, Google is going to contest the fine, but the company is also running to daddy to cry and whine about how those damn Europeans won’t let it engage in illegal behaviour.
Last night, all the big US technology CEOs gathered for a dinner with Donald Trump, each taking turns gratuitously thanking and praising the big man for his amazing achievements during these first few months of his administration. Tim Cook, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, and many more were all bending the knee and kissing the ring in what can only be described as a borderline pornographic display of fealty. Among them was, of course, the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, one day after Google laughed its way out of the courtroom.
“Well you had a very good day yesterday,” Trump said, calling on Pichai at the Thursday evening dinner. “Google had a very good day yesterday. Do you want to talk about that big day you had yesterday?”
[…]“I’m glad it’s over,” Pichai responded to Trump, causing an eruption of laughter from the other table guests.
“It’s a long process,” Pichai said. “Appreciate that your administration had a constructive dialogue, and we were able to get it to some resolution.”
↫ Jennifer Elias at CNBC
Mind you, several of those “other table guests” are also being investigated by a variety of arms of the US government for monopoly abuse and antritrust violations, and I’m sure their laughter was almost entirely self-serving. If Google of all monopolies can slime its way out of any serious consequences, what hope does that leave that the other tech giants will ever have to face the consequences of their abuse?
At least the European Union seems to be mostly holding its head high so far, but one can’t help but wonder how long the Phoenician princess can hold off the bull. The fact of the matter is that the European and US economies are heavily intertwined, and we let ourselves become utterly dependent on the US for our defense, too, and with Trump not deterred by Pyrrhic victories, a fallout is definitely not out of the question.
Trump intervention in 3, 2, 1… “The EU is unfair and not playing nice with the USA, let’s raise the tariff for EU to 50%”.