That'll hurt Google's competitors, and hence help Google, more than it hurts Google.
Same.
> Facebook's tax of 5k/year in the UK, the double irish with a dutch sandwich, the backroom deals from the 80s with the Irish govt.. these are global practices which truly devastate everyone in the long run.
And are all legal, and designed as so by the government. Auditing won't make a difference, since it is legal. Don't like it? Make it illegal. Simple as that.
> actually trust bureaucrats to step in and audit - and subjectively think they very often do a decent job of explaining rationales given europeans' known tendency of bickering on pretty much everything.
Oh, no issue with that. My issue is with this:
> Or Google and Facebook will be held to a higher standard of compliance.
What we're dealing with here is loopholes and nothing more under various incarnations - take patents in the US or the lax tax policies of Malta or Isle of Man as an example - and you'll get a sense on why a bit of cleaning up is sorely needed.
Oh, I agree, it definitely needs cleaning up.
Than whom else? VK? Baidu? ICQ?
Otherwise, it would be a good idea to at least accept the possibility of sincerity when different polities want different rules than the US.
Suggesting that US companies should be above reproach or oversight, by definition, or that the EU would treat local or Asian companies who tried to pull the same stunts more generously is not based on evidence.
If US corporates try to flout European law, they'll suffer consequences. Market cap does not provide a free pass for being a bad actor.
> Or Google and Facebook will be held to a higher standard of compliance.
> Or Google and Facebook will be held to a higher standard of compliance.