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Comment by neverminder | Hacker News Reader

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

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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.

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.

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