[lovetox]

You are missing the point.

Google does not just steal money which we get back with a fine and thats it.

It drives competitors out of the market and that causes damage to the economy and is against the interests of the population where they do business.

They should make the Managers personally liable.

If you think about it 1.5 Billions is laughable for a company like Google, its only money which they have plenty from. Nothing will change.

[treis]

>If you think about it 1.5 Billions is laughable for a company like Google, its only money which they have plenty from. Nothing will change.

Just because they have a lot of money doesn't mean they are okay with losing a bunch. As long as the fine amount, adjusting for the probability of the fine, is higher than benefit Google attains by breaking the law it will act as a deterrence.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Google does not just steal money which we get back with a fine and thats it.

> It drives competitors out of the market and that causes damage to the economy and is against the interests of the population where they do business.

That's the same thing. The harm can be measured in money and a proportional fine imposed. That is no argument for the fine to be proportional to total revenue rather than having any relationship to the harm itself.

> They should make the Managers personally liable.

At which point the "manager" is compensated by the company or its liability insurance for whatever retribution the government takes on them as an individual, and it's still the company paying regardless.

> If you think about it 1.5 Billions is laughable for a company like Google, its only money which they have plenty from. Nothing will change.

I don't know about that. In the US the tech companies used to mostly ignore Washington, until it stopped ignoring them. Now they're some of the biggest spenders on lobbying.

That would take a different form in Europe because the laws are different, but if you're not expecting this to lead to some variant of "money buys influence" you're likely in for a surprise. So it will likely change that at least.

Which is another reason proportionality is important. If preventing a $1M fine is worth spending $1M on lobbying then preventing a series of multi-billion dollar fines is worth...