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Comment by p4bl0 | Hacker News Reader

Actually, the Conseil d'État just released its decision a few minutes ago: Google have to pay. See http://www.conseil-etat.fr/fr/communiques-de-presse/sanction... (in French).

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Le Conseil d'État is a French institution whose decisions can be broken (sadly) by European courts.

I think Google is not fighting for its reputation, but if they pay now they will open the door to more fines from over countries.

They would have had argued to the Conseil d'État in order to get the sentence suspended while the European court decide on the matter. Its not enough to just send in an appeal to the European court, as sovereignty still matters.

This chain of events happened during the pirate bay trial, in which Swedish courts did not approve of suspending sentences while waiting for an European court decision. The suspects still sent in their request, but any decision the European could had made would be after the fact.

> Le Conseil d'État is a French institution whose decisions can be broken (sadly) by European courts.

It's not as simple as that. From what I have understood, there is a precise hierarchy of courts and the Conseil d'État is at the top of the administrative courts hierarchy. The only way to appeal their decision is to go one step higher which would be the European Court of Human Rights, and I don't see how Google could find a valid reason to get there with this issue.

With piles of money involved it's possible that the ECHR would find for a reduction of citizen's rights, but AFAIK that'd be a first. Usually they go the other way around, and pretty seriously so.

> I think Google is not fighting for its reputation, but if they pay now they will open the door to more fines from over countries.

that's more like it, if they cave now, there is a huge list of states that dream about taxing Google very hard. Google wont pay.

According to the article it's not about the money, it's about the publicly displayed apology that google is uncomfortable with.

So they are perfectly happy to admit liability and pay up, as long as they aren't forced to publicise that admission to the people that the court case itself was on behalf of.

Yep, I think that sums it up. The fine is pocket money for Google so surely it's not about that.

This time, yes, because it's about privacy and the CNIL can't do much more than 150,000€.

But France also asks Google for 1 billion € of unpaid taxes over the last years, and this time I guess they will really try to avoid paying (hopefully they won't be able to, but we'll see).

American billion or European billion? In this case I think the distinction is important (I guess it's the first case... the latter would be... big, very big, hugely, mindbogglingly big)

Like I said, 1 billion €, so a "European billion". Yes it is a lot of money. But even more so is the amount of money that Google earned in France and managed not to declare to the fisc (the French tax administration).

Sure, it's almost the definition of tax (it should be less than the amount earned.) I hope they pay, it's not like we are floating in money in Europe currently.

Nah, it's a thousand million, a milliard in other words. It's confusing.

https://www.google.com/search?q=google+france+milliard+impot...

The anglosphere uses short scale billions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales#Current_...

Ya I didn't know that. I thought his question was € vs $, which is why I didn't quite understood it. Thanks for picking up my mistake.

To clarify, a European billion is an American trillion [1] (an American billion is a European milliard), which is why RBerenguel said "the latter would be... big, very big, hugely, mindbogglingly big."

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales

Just to clarify: in continental Europe and USA billion means different number. [0]

I'd guess USA billion, as it's about taxes and taxes can't be bigger than what Google is worth...

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales

He, I didn't know that, thanks for sharing.

Don't assume. They are French taxes, after all. It's entirely possible that Google could owe them more than the net worth of the planet.

The CE also decided that Google have to go with that. They said that anyway it's okay for Google to say that they do not agree with the decision and that they are waiting for the final decision of the "juge de fond"¹, alongside with the CNIL message (the apology) they have to display, so it won't be such a problem for there reputation.

The thing to know is that, since it is very difficult to quantify how much damage (in €) would be implied by the displayed apology, the CE would certainly not have maintained this punishment if they weren't almost sure that the "juge de fond" will take the same decision (otherwise France would have to reimburse an uncomputable amount).

¹ no idea how to translate "juge de fond" in English, but the idea is that this time it was a fast-track procedure in which Google asked to waive the sanction while waiting for the "deep" procedure to take place. This is what have been rejected by the CE.

That's unfortunate, their reputations should be that of a company that is trying to get as much personal info as possible.

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