[sangnoir]

Australia and Facebook did exactly what you described in your "impossible" hypothetical. I suspect the government's thinking was the Australia is too big a market for the victim companies to drop, i.e. they thought this was a deal they could not refuse.

[CydeWeys]

No they didn't. Google isn't being forced to operate there; there's simply an additional cost of doing business being imposed. Clearly it's not in excess of income from Australia if they're continuing to choose to do business in the country.