| It is ABSOLUTELY a regulator and a court system running wild. That's the whole point here. The commission narrowly defines a mobile OS market and excludes Apple through a selective description of these markets. Read the other comments in this thread for why that is an absolutely dishonest way of defining markets for the purpose of investigating or finding abuse of monopoly power. Individuals on the committee have openly gone on record calling US tech companies "Evil" and vowing to exact punishment on them far before any investigation had begun. This is the definition of persecution. An appropriate response to a reasonable government agency enforcement would be met with nothing but applause and diplomacy in international circles. When you look at the history of US tech companies being asked to pay unimaginable sums through very suspect changes in law and court rulings that seem to never challenge the core legal issues that are set on legally suspect ground, there is absolutely a diplomatic objection to be filed. In the interest of protecting the interests of any sovereign nation, that nation may choose to use all options available to it to stop the miscarriage of justice. The United States and Europe maintain friendly relations through a series of agreements rooted in trust and a shared sense of purpose. When you have idiots and childlike behavior such as this that narrowly carves out a legally suspect standard to target and persecute an important US industry while turning a blind eye to Chinese companies , well . . . that's going to need a lot of re thinking. As far as scientific advancement goes, you're hopefully smart enough to realize the contributions of all the intelligent work done not just at Google, but in the private sector at large. If not, well, your bias may prevent you from acting rational in this discussion and i wish you well. |
Well that's stepped up significantly, the regulator and the legal system running wild.
The courts offer a way of checking if the fine should really have been issued, and it should. In response to this you suggest unchecked sanctions applied to completely different industries.
> The commission narrowly defines a mobile OS market and excludes Apple through a selective description of these markets.
Seems extremely simple to me that these things are distinct based on the restrictions we're talking about. Google may have been able to tie everything together if only they made and manufactured their own phones. I'm not even sure that including apple would help much since Android has an 80% market share.
> Individuals on the committee
The regulator and the court involved in the appeal?
> As far as scientific advancement goes, you're hopefully smart enough to realize the contributions of all the intelligent work done not just at Google, but in the private sector at large
And anti-competitive practices hurt the private sector. Competition has been fundamental to the dramatic progress made, and I don't think that google trying to stop people building phones with different OS's on them is beneficial.
Compete on merits, rather than "might makes right", in my opinion.
Google was, for example, controlling what versions of android manufacturers could put on their devices if they wanted any devices they made to have the Play Store. That does not to me seem like a good thing.