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Comment by idbehold | Hacker News Reader

You're kidding, right? You don't think people would be upset when they cannot access Gmail, Google search results, or Google Maps? And a message in each service asking users to contact their representatives if they want access to the services again would be all that is required.

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That would be a very unlikely consequence of breaking up Google.

Oh, this could be a preemptive move by Google before enforcement of the breakup even happened.

Google may seem powerful and almighty to us now, but at the end of the day they would have to cave if - despite lobbying efforts - one of their major markets demanded a breakup.

You're kidding right? You don't think people would be upset when they cannot access their funds though their favored stock broker or bank? Each bank would lobby their customers to contact their representatives. They're too big to fail! They're too integral to the economy to consider even breaking them up. /s

I'm not suggesting that Google isn't a monopoly or that it shouldn't be broken up. I'm suggesting that Google could withhold services from the EU instead of agreeing to be broken up. Unlike a bank where its customers could demand their money back, Google owes its users nothing.

Hmm that's an interesting point. However, much like a bank needs customers doesn't Google need users? I find it not very persuasive that withholding an entire continent of users would result in much more than an empty threat on Google's part. If Google can't service Europe, then Europe would develop its own services, much like China has, a terrifying prospect for both American foreign policy and Google's future prospects. Perhaps Europe would even turn to Baidu. I don't think that would happen, but the threat would be alarming to Google's negotiators.

EU law considers a citizen's data their personal property (akin to a bank holding a citizen's money), and Google is holding a lot of it. Google could get into significant additional legal trouble depending on the method they chose to withdraw their services.

Well we know how people would react, because it happened before when Google was forced out of China.

Everyone there uses a local alternative and doesn’t give a fuck about Google anymore

that's BS, Google wasn't anywhere near as widespread in China as it is in Europe.

which is also why Google was fine with leaving China

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