Google has been fined 4.34billion euros ($5billion), Antitrust rules over Android OS

[Leosghost]

Google has been fined a record €4.34bn ($5bn; £3.9bn) over Android.

The European Commission said the firm had used the mobile operating system to illegally "cement its dominant position" in search.

The firm's parent Alphabet has been given 90 days to change its business practices or face further penalties of up to 5% of its average global daily turnover.

[bbc.co.uk...]

[edited by: engine at 1:41 pm (utc) on Jul 18, 2018]
[edit reason] corrected fines details at member's request [/edit]

[Shaddows]

Going back a bit, I think the Open vs Proprietary systems is a pop at iOS, not Open Source.

Essentially, Google is being penalised because, having allowed other apps to be put on it's device at launch, it has nevertheless favoured it's own.

Compare and contrast to Apple, which does not allow competitors at all..

The implication being that if partial competition is illegal, Android will aim for no competition over full competition.

Which may not be as the EUC envisaged.

Edit spelling and formatting

[edited by: Shaddows at 1:17 pm (utc) on Jul 19, 2018]

[Shaddows]

I don't think AntiTrust is something to be jailed over.

The original fine is designed to be a slap on the wrist. You notice it, but it doesn't hurt you.

5% worldwide revenues is the actual penalty, and that is proportionate. Any percentage is proportionate by definition.

[mosxu]

I was thinking maybe that after wrong doing was established by a court the companies being affected by abuse of power would have a class action allowed?

[Shaddows]

There is no real provision for class-action in EU law (at least before GDPR, which expressly allows it), nor the law of the major Member State jurisdictions.

You would have to prove actual damages in court. (Actual damages being another major difference from US law, where punitive damages usually make up most of any headline-grabbing award)

[jecasc]

After being taken from Google, the money is placed in a closed account and held until all court appeals have been heard. If the fine is upheld by the appeals process, then the money is sent to the European Union, and from there is portioned out to each member. The amount given to each country is dependent on how much money that particular country contributes to the EU, with the top donors getting the most back.

Should the appeal overturn the fine, then the money will then return to Google, and vice versa

[digitaltrends.com...]

[Shaddows]

is dependent on how much money that particular country contributes to the EU

Is that before or after the British rebate? ;)

[Leosghost]

I wonder what is the 24 hour interest on 5 billion at interbank rate ?
depends if is before or after Brexit ..technically redistribution should include the UK as the offences were / will have been committed prior to Brexit..if distributed pro rata (as linked to ) should be enough to keep the NHS ( and duck ponds ) going for about 8 days or so ;), less if WRM also has a duck pond..

re antitrust..and jail..many anti-trust actions have affected smaller businesses and end customers to such a degree that small ( and medium ) companies have closed, and consumers have actually died or been made severely unwell, due to collusion re pharma prices etc..

Recent collusion case in France featuring lefarge ( cement company ) working with and paying ISIS to keep trading in Iraq and Syria, thus contributing to civilian deaths by funding ISIS..Some "hidden faults" ( but known to the C-suites ) in various vehicles have contributed to deaths and injuries, some collusion between banks over libor rates etc etc..all have "knock on" effects that need sanctioning other than fines which the mega rich can pay without blinking, or when applied to corps will get written of against tax ( and as Eric Schmidt has said in the past about what Google has been found out doing and fined over, "fines are an acceptable part of doing business" ) on profits..Fines are deductible from the company, even if they came out of the C-suite's individual pockets, when one is that rich, fines of billions are no real deterrent (jail time, and not open jail luxury jails ) rent, so they keep on breaking the laws, just different ones each time..Real "hard" jail time would maybe focus their attention as to what is morally right..and they'd do a bit less evil.

[Shaddows]

Dealing with ISIS is a criminal matter. As is poisoning, fraud (LIBOR) and a bunch of other things that C-suite, and generally all Board members, should be legally and criminally accountable for.

Antitrust is a civil matter, and should be dealt with in the way that other civil matters are- though fines. As it goes, I think 5% worldwide revenue is probably right. What would be useful would be having a class of corporate misconduct which precluded bonuses being paid.

Price fixing could be fraud, and thus criminal. Or it could be a Civil matter, it depends on the nature, and the jurisdiction.

The French have weird ideas about jails. Germany too (see Bernie Ecclestone). And Italy (Berlusconi). But British justice is generally pretty even-handed- you don't get to pick your jail.

I'd be very happy to see Directors getting jailed for corporate malfeasance, but not for making people put an app on a phone, when the OEM can add alternatives prior to distribution, and the End User has unlimited choice to add their own.

I am currently uneducated about the Adsense thing, so maybe I'll support jail for that.

WRM? Did you mean JRM? Doubt he has ducks, think he prefers grouse. Or pheasants (definitely with the 'h')

[EditorialGuy]

@EG...What "other tariffs" these are fines, "tariffs" are customs charges..anyone who is in ecom or import export knows the two things , tariffs and fines ,are not remotely connected..!.

You obviously have a tin ear for sarcasm. And I'd say they're very much connected in this case. Call it a "fine" if you like, but in the end, it's a tax on a foreign company--and one that ultimately will be borne by consumers (including consumers in the EU).

[Leosghost]

a tax on a foreign company

Good lord man, put down the G cheerleader flag for a moment ( you have shares in G ? ) , the EU has issued fines on EU companies for similar cartel like behaviour, the EU are an equal opportunity cartel finer..
I only have a "tin ear" for attempts to drag red herrings across debates which are not going in Googles favour, something which we all know you excel at.

Call it a "fine" if you like, but in the end, it's a tax on a foreign company--and one that ultimately will be borne by consumers (including consumers in the EU).

Everyoen calls it a fine, even Google, except you..( and maybe DT if he thinks it will get him some brownie points )..Do you call the fines on VW imposed by the USA over dieselgate tariffs ?..<=rhetorical question , don't bother ansering it, you have tried to drag the thread off subject enough as it is..

shaddows..the differences between the way UK law and EU law treats anti-trust and cartels is one of the things that I appreciate about the EU, we'll have to agree to differ,

Yes you were right , I meant JRM, when I left the UK ( in 1987 ) WRM was known, whereas JRM was no doubt still pulling the wings off flies at prep school or in some educational establishment for the preparation of the chinless to rule their inferiors , and I was oblivious to his existence, would that happy situation had continued ..

[Leosghost]

one that ultimately will be borne by consumers (including consumers in the EU).

Again ( you must have missed my earlier points re making the C-suite hurt personally for whatever illegal shenanigans they get up to ) if the fines were personally against the c-suite members who sanctioned and dreamed up these anti-trust schemes, then they would not be able to pass them on as "the cost of doing business" and would not be able to pass them on to the end consumers..They'd probably vote themselves "bonuses" ( or get their friends to vote them such ) equivalent to the fines..

Passing the fines on to consumers , or fining the companies and corps as "entities" is like punishing all the kids in a class when the teacher knows that only two kids are guilty, but those two kids have "connections" , so are never held personally responsible for their actions..

The current EU commissioner Margrethe Vestager is fortunately not "influencable"* ( or has a perfectly innocuous search history ), the previous one should have done this long ago.. many of us have wondered when Google were going to employ him.

* may not be an actual word..

[samwest]

Who gets all the money from the fines and what do they do with it?

It would be smart to put it towards their 10 trillion EU debt, but what's the point, it's a drop in the bucket. Just spend it on a beer, wine, cheese and sausage party. [smava.de...]

[Leosghost]

Silly game..nothing to do with fines imposed by either the EU or the USA
US national debt ..21 trillion, and rising
[usdebtclock.org...]
[en.wikipedia.org...]

[mosxu]

Wrong doing has left a few victims in a disadvantaged position, then send the money to the victims not to states.

Make it fair if you want to be fair

[lucy24]

send the money to the victims not to states

{ insert explanation of difference between civil and criminal law here }

[engine]

Who gets all the money from the fines and what do they do with it?

In this particular instance, it goes into EU budget.

fines on companies for breaching competition laws, etc.

[ec.europa.eu...]

According to reports, Google offered to resolve the E.U. complaint, but long after it was made, and didn't go far enough.
[bloomberg.com...]

[IanKelley]

I only have a "tin ear" for attempts to drag red herrings across debates

And here I thought it was a wry statement of a reasonable question.

When 5 billion dollars in involved, "who benefits" is always a reasonable question. Unless we're pretending that governments always do everything for altruistic reasons.

Putting the money aside, the EU just sucks at this stuff. There are all kinds of constructive ways they could reign in Google and/or promote competition. Fining a company for saying "if you want to include this software (the Play Store) then you have to also include this other software" is just clumsy. Especially when the company is also saying "If you don't want to include the software, cool, you can still use the OS completely for free".

Moreover, the open source nature of Android has been incredibly good for competition in pretty much every smartphone market. It results in legitimate competition for Apple that might not otherwise exist, it results in low cost devices in developing counties that would unarguably be more expensive otherwise, and etc..

Can you imagine if Samsung or, I don't know, Verizon tried to build and maintain their own OS? Just look at their launchers and other bloatware for evidence of their software engineering expertise. Apple would become a monopoly (in the middle and high end markets) overnight, instead of the dozen or so legitimate players in the current smartphone world.

The software bundling in question is what Google gets out of developing and maintaining an open source OS. It's their selfish, shareholder friendly, motivation for doing something that is undeniably good for consumers.

The particular issue in question, Android itself and open sourcing by a large company are so just completely the wrong targets for what might be a well meaning attempt at regulation.

[EditorialGuy]

The New York Times recently published a "Common Sense" column about the EU's decision that's worth reading:

[nytimes.com...]

[Leosghost]

::sigh::..Google got fined by the EU..get over it..nothing "worth reading" there at all ..
The NYT found one Google paid shill to back up their Google PR piece, ( NYT has always been very pro Google )..and merely claimed ( with no proof ) that anyone who agreed with the EU decision was hard to find, wonder how much they got paid or what was promised ( ads, adsense, in kind, access ? ) for that PR piece..whatever, makes no difference, EU is bigger than Google..Google knew this was coming for years now, and they thought that the previous commissioner was going to stay in the job for long enough to keep brushing their problem under the carpet and stalling in their favour..The EU finally realised that he was looking out for Google ntsead of looking out for the EU citizens..
His replacement, Margrethe Vestager cannot be bought off, has no skeletons in her search history :) Google ran out of time and ran out of influence..
The attempts to use their shills to play the "the EU is just jealous and picking on good ole USA companies and the stars and stripes" is pathetic..Google don't care where they are based, as long as they pay the least tax possible and can use the most of other peoples content possible without paying..so they are in Ireland for tax purposes, and in the USA for copyright abuse purposes under a grotesque parody of "fair use".

If Nigeria or Cambodia or Algeria or any other country offered Google a better tax deal and the ability to abuse copyright still further, Google would move their corporate HQ there in a heartbeat, just as long as Eric had an ocean front property ( or better still a private island ) with a huge villa, and privacy for himself..Wall st wouldn't make a dissenting sound, and adsense publishers would count the money and defend Google..As long as the advertisers stayed convinced that the clicks on the adwords that build the Google empire and that cost so much, still had to be paid for, even though so many are clicks are made by bots that Google could / should / claim to block in their black box "trust us" billing model ..

[MrSavage]

Thanks for the interesting reading. It's always good to see that there is still some passion on this subject.