Posted on 07/18/2018 3:55:34 PM PDT by Mariner
Europe’s latest move to rein in Google puts pressure on U.S. regulators and lawmakers to curb the power of the Silicon Valley giant—a step Americans have thus far been reluctant to take.
The European Union slapped Google parent Alphabet Inc. GOOGL -0.01% with a $5 billion fine for abusing the dominance of its Android mobile platform on Wednesday, the EU’s second major antitrust action against the internet search provider in a little more than a year.
No similar action appears on the horizon in the U.S., where Google and other top tech companies have benefited from the prevailing view that their business practices, on the whole, benefit consumers beyond any concerns they might raise. Their considerable political clout in Washington also has helped shield them from scrutiny.
But in recent months, various U.S. policy makers have voiced concerns that Google’s practices are stifling competition and endangering the privacy of billions of users. These voices have helped put an assortment of potential policy measures against Google and other companies on the table.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
They are enemies of the American people and do not deserve any protection from our government.
And, yes, they are a monopoly by definition of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
Agreed. We need to break ‘em up. Big companies are anti-Free Market by nature, and go running to government to protect them from competition.
Agree.
Several of them have a stranglehold and they use it to push leftist politics.
I switched to DuckDuckGo.
The answer if for the government to tell them no. It isn't to interfere with the market by breaking them up.
DuckDuckGo and Ixquick are great for not giving out info but they use the same data provided by google so you get mostly the same priorities in search returns
Hahahahahaha, that's a good one.
Amusing that the Wall Street Journal is pushing the EU view. I’d think the pressure would be to impose countervailing penalties amounting to $5b on EU firms.
The two biggest anti trust cases of the 20th century were Ma Bell and Standard Oil.
BOTH break-up were good for markets, business and consumers.
Agree.
yep free market solution is always the way to go. Get the govt involved and it will come back to bite you.
If they are breaking existing laws, I say git ‘em.
You are simply wrong on this one.
Without the government suit a subsequent consent decree, you would be connecting to Free Republic via a 19.2kbs modem owned by Western Electric , installed by Western Electric and maintained by Western Electric.
And you would be typing on a computer owned by Western Electric, installed by Western Electric and maintained by Western Electric.
And only Western Electric/Bell applications would be installed on that computer by a Bell Technician.
The Internet backbone would be X.25 running over T-1s.
I was in the network business when the break-up occurred, and I’m in the business now. The break-up spawned thousands of companies, millions of jobs and a thorough technological revolution similar to the industrial revolution of the 19th century.
Not quite. The lack of cookies doesn’t allow profiling, so results are different. Try it: do a search on both google and a private engine and review the results. The rankings and results are different.
Stupid idea.
That would simply create an enormous criminal bribes environment; and as Hillary continues to demonstrate, she alone has almost dealt a mortal blow to honest government...
Honest charities...
And honest businesses of all kinds.
mlo chooses regulation over break-up.
“We don’t care, we don’t have to, we’re the Phone Company.”
I’m no fan of Google, but what if they just say NO!
It’s part of a bigger problem: the concentration of the flow of information in the hands of a very few (predominantly leftist/globalist) organizations. How few news mega-conglomerates are there now? Five? Couple that with two or three similarly inclined software platforms on which the information is conveyed. The result is a lock on information that Joseph Goebbels and the editors of Pravda never dreamed of, but that George Orwell foresaw.
There’s a great scene in the movie “Network” where Howard Beale warns the viewers of this, and this was 40 years ago....
“We’re in a lot of trouble....”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFvT_qEZJf8
“but what if they just say NO!”
They PROBABLY have several billions in assets in Europe. They also generate several billion per year in revenue.
The EU will just take it.
Or deny them the ability to operate in Europe until they pay up.
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