[ythl]

> Is anyone surprised that Google didn't come from Europe, and the next one isn't either?

Disruptive/innovative startups require an "ask for forgiveness" mentality, and not a "ask for permission" mentality which Europe tries so hard to cultivate.

[k-mcgrady]

Comparing how regulators are acting towards Google now vs. How they would act when Google was a startup is ridiculous. The investigations are largely based on Google abusing power, you can't do that when you're a couple of people. We need to stop looking at Facebook/Google etc. as innovative little startups. They're behemoths that can afford to ask for permission.

[philippoi]

The nature of a Competition Commission case often requires more than just disruptive/innovative startup status. That's their starting point in this case as well: with Google's often cited 90% market share of European searches, they're liable to not abuse their dominant position. A disruptive/innovative startup won't attract this kind of attention from the Competition Commission until it has achieved similar monopoly status. It's interesting that even Thiel laid out the playbook for defending the "we're not actually a monopoly position in his 'Zero To One'." Google seems to be taking exactly that defensive tactic as their base. The three billy goats defense.

If you go into the case files, you can see the logic which is central to their findings. They're in no way as general as they're made out to be in a lot of the press on the case. And Google is much less public about the case so it's hard to get a sense of what their perspective is on it.

EU Competition Commission's Google Search case: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/case_details.cf...

Edit: ...and their new case, focusing on AdSense: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/case_details.cf...