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Comment by vasco | Hacker News Reader

"No company should be big enough to..." is a bit of a philosophical musing, but since the world we have has allowed for companies grow to this size and to own and dominate our data as they have, what other solutions would you have in mind to update digital policy that don't involve also speaking to the people at the helm of the very organizations that are holding most of said data? You wouldn't at least discuss the topic with them?

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I don't think it's meant to be a criticism of the act itself, but what the fact that it's necessary represents. I imagine the proposed solution would be closer to "break up google" than "stop talking to google"

Why not just break up all tech giants? Why single out Google?

It would make more sense to just tax them..

I’m sure you could invent any reason if you needed to, given this is a political question rather than a purely economic one.

For example, while I think of Apple as just a luxury goods company, the fact they make high-end phones means they are an obvious security target for anyone who wants to hack high-value individuals in general. I can easily believe some would want to take it into government ownership just for the increased government oversight opportunities alone, even in a liberal capitalist society.

Because we are talking about Google today: they were the subject of the article; we shouldn't have to generalize every single statement.

> we are talking about Google today

We were talking only about Google yesterday and probably will tomorrow too, but sure "we are talking about Google today".

And we were also, separately, talking about Apple all week, and we spent the past year talking about Facebook. What is your point? (Actually, looking at your comments you seem to spend all your time talking about Google, so I am guessing you are a Google shill and probably work for them or something :/.)

This is like the “#alllivesmatter” response. Sure, there are other giants and all too big companies should be improved with various interventions. But the article is about google and eu, so bringing up that this also applies to all big giants is not very interesting.

Of course google has unique problems that no other tech giant has since no one else controls search.

King Philip IV of France took a practical approach in dealing with a similar problem. [Two days ago], Friday the 13th, was the 713th anniversary of his solution to the thorny problem of sovreign conflicts with powerful transnational organizations. That is the day he smashed the Templars in France.

Philip tweeted: "Dieu n'est pas content, nous avons des ennemis de la foi dans le Royaume"

("God is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the kingdom")

Are you proposing that the EU government should murder all Google employees in the EU in order to consolidate its own power and control?

Why do you make than inflammatory analogy ? Even Philip IV didn't kill all templars, only the senior leadership. The rank and file templars joined other orders.

It draws attention to the inflammatory premise of the original comment, that Google ought to be thankful France isn't taking "a practical approach". A king murdering the leaders of an organization that got in his way is not a positive example of regulatory power!

> Philip tweeted ...

Wow. Twitter sure has been around a lot longer than most people realised. ;)

> King Philip IV of France took a practical approach in dealing with a similar problem.

AFAIK his problem was slighly different—he owed them money :)

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