Maybe I don't know much
But every time I see that Google gets fined (even if $1B) it feels to me like a a Ferrari got parking ticket
You can compare it to entrepreneur from a wealthy family
He can take risks, knowing that if he fail, it won't be to the ground
Damage to their brand worth billions
Cambridge analytica scandal costed FB a lot more then the fine
It cost them in their users trust
and that's the worst kind of punishment a large brand such as facebook can get
I guess there is a parallel with actual people. Personal reputation matters, but surely we need to be a bit more harsh when punishing certain behaviour.
It would have sent a strong message to other CEOs. Don’t fuck with people’s data.
But that seldom happens. It’s US, the rich rule the country.
I think, despite the title, this isn’t actually a criminal case. It’s Google taking advantage of that Irish tax loophole.
Every time a fine or an agreement is made, their stock goes up and the execs throw a party.
So it's like me doing something illegal and profiting $100k, but then getting fined $50k. I'd be stupid not to do it again. And again. And again.
At a minimum, the fine should be 2x the amount gained.
- Making it more profitable for the company to just leave your market completely, underservicing everyone there immediately
- Creating an actual monopoly with costlier and poorer service when the policed company exits the market (either from leaving or being dissolved - the latter not applying to Google in this case)
- Creating an incentive to actually challenge the authority in court. Exponentially raising the cost for enforcement and not guaranteeing any favorable outcome.
- And as a corollary to the court, the challenge of authority can result in all the enforcement tools being declared invalid, including the charter for the enforcement agency itself! Resulting in a big public sector layoff and void in enforcement capability.
Google haven't done anything illegal. The so called "loophole" in the law is actually the way the law was explicitly designed to work. If France pushed this too far Google might win and France would be left with nothing
The people cheering for France here are really just cheering for the end of the rule of law. Google pays little tax in France because it's not a French company, not because of "loopholes".
There is no European tech company that's going to compete with Google. They could ban Google entirely and the result would be Baidu etc. coming in and doing the exact same things.
Any would-be competitor to Google is going to want to plow most/all of their revenue back into growth for years, perhaps over a decade. VC funded companies normally lose money so they can grow faster.
Once you're making money, yeah that's kind of a big sucking hole you want to deal with. But that's a political issue that other EU members states have with Ireland (and Luxembourg, and the Netherlands).
Certainly, tax is not the reason there are no Google competitors from France.
Fines are a deterrent and punitive measure. They punish you for doing something and make you hesitate to do it again. If these 2 goals aren't reached than the fine isn't really effective.
If they were a warning then you'd expect the second offense to be punished by some action that can make the fine feel like "just" a warning. What's that action? How effective is a string of endless warnings that are never followed up with real action?
One way would be to implement a series of exponentially growing fines. This would make them less "cost of doing business" and more "massive liability".
Yes, don't enter the EU market if you want to dodge taxes. More countries should be enforcing this..