Google loses challenge against EU antitrust decision, wins 5% fine cut

I find it bizarre they can slice and dice a market to a point where Android is a monopoly despite the face that competitors can fork Android for free and have done so eg. Huawei's HarmonyOS.

Would Google never licensing Android to EU firms have avoided this fine in the first place? I can't imagine they made that much money from EU business' licensing android.

The main job of American diplomacy is securing profits all over the world for America's most generous lobbyists.

Any half wit judge should be able to bless those judgements if we’re using the standard in the court ruling we’re commenting on.

It’s a almost as though you think the issue here is about some actual abuse as opposed to the logical loops the judgement is diving through to push through those findings.

The specific findings of the commission and the court here go against any reasonable logic.

The EU seems to love kicking US tech firms while staying silent on anything China does. Ask German businesses who moved manufacturing to China and had their Intellectual property stolen from right in front of their eyes, only to have the EU play pussycat then.

Your comment could certainly use a bit more thought.

The united fruit mentality never really ended.

I tink they should also be fined 1% of the original fine per day, for failing to pay the fine and delaying as much as possible to on order to diminish the fines due to inflation.

In what? Bureaucracy?

> EU is not at fault here.

They could try promoting innovation and producing tech companies of their own instead of devoting substantial amounts of energy to squeezing their more successful foreign counterparts. A cursory glance at the largest market cap companies in America reveals they are on average about 40-50 years old vs like 100 for Europe.

You don't really get in trouble for just growing your business within a market. You get in trouble for abusing your dominant position in one market to influence another.

You can see this in the restrictions identified

> those contained in ‘distribution agreements’, requiring manufacturers of mobile devices to pre-install the general search (Google Search) and (Chrome) browser apps in order to be able to obtain a licence from Google to use its app store (Play Store);

They used their position of having a huge influence with Play Store to force manufacturers to include google search and chrome, which are unrelated.

> those contained in ‘anti-fragmentation agreements’, under which the operating licences necessary for the pre-installation of the Google Search and Play Store apps could be obtained by mobile device manufacturers only if they undertook not to sell devices running versions of the Android operating system not approved by Google;

They used their position with Android to force manufacturers to push google search and the play store by not letting them even build other devices without approval.

> those contained in ‘revenue share agreements’, under which the grant of a share of Google’s advertising revenue to the manufacturers of mobile devices and the mobile network operators concerned was subject to their undertaking not to pre-install a competing general search service on a predefined portfolio of devices.

They used their advertising business to force out competitors in search. You can argue this is one market if you want but it's clear this isn't competing on the merits of google search.

As soon as you successfully pressure someone into that kind of deal, it is pretty obvious that the product you use as leverage is dominant in some way.

And investigating Apple for its licensing agreements with its hardware supplier probably would be a bit pointless.

Now, should the EU be investigating the lack of hardware freedom in some ecosystems including Apple's? Sure, sounds eminently sensible. But that's completely different to what the EU was investigating here.

Speculating that this did seriously play out and you "fuck with the regulators, they punish you", is that really the accepted cultural take in Europe?

I mean, sure, there is a common sense level of decency in dealing with regulators and not making them madder than need be, but take a look at the United States. A regulator may try asserting more power than they possess and the courts offer a system to at least challenge it and have these excesses checked.

I suppose the point of my comical take was the idea of challenging an unjust ruling by entities with a noted history of hostility toward US tech firms. Trump went aggressive on the EU and threatened to sanction the fuck out of the union if they hit the tech firms or Boeing with fines.

There's always a bigger fish in the pond. The regulators themselves can play this game given Europes historical economic position, but when tech companies deemed important to US national security and honestly scientific progress around the world are put at threat by the squabbling in Brussels, you can bet a stern response from the US will be taken seriously.