Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by piva00 1106 days ago
> Alternatively, the EU having global jurisdiction would have even bigger issue. With that precedent, could Japan or Australia regulate European businesses?

That's already what the USA does to global companies operating inside the US. That's exactly how Cuba has been under a blockade from the US, for example...
1 comments
spacebanana7 1105 days ago
Sanctions are different from antitrust.

With sanctions the US can declare that third parties must choose between doing business with the US and Cuba / ZTE. Because of it's large economy the US would be confident that most of those parties would choose to choose the US over the company / small country.

Antitrust enforcement is many ways more difficult than sanctions enforcement because third parties must be compelled in 'how' rather than 'whether' they do business with a company.

Even the US would've struggled to break up ZTE / Huawei etc into smaller companies across every jurisdiction for antitrust. Doing so in China would've obviously been impossible but even enforcing this in the Gulf States & South Korea would've stretched the limits of US power.

link
sangnoir 1105 days ago
When it comes down to it - it's the same thing with the EU - they can decree that Google be broken apart or stop doing business in the union. Or pay a massive fine based on global profit or exit the union.
link
spacebanana7 1105 days ago
The goal of antitrust is to make markets more competitive.

If Google left the EU entirely there’d be even fewer competitors in the digital ads space. Depending on the segment Google’s market share would likely go to Bing, Facebook or TikTok.

The EU wants to increase the market competition, but frustratingly antitrust enforcement may not be effective and might even go in the opposite direction.

link
piva00 1105 days ago
If Google left the ads market in the EU there'd be a massive gap to be filled by multiple companies, competition would have a field day filling it.

I don't follow your argument.

link
callalex 1105 days ago
>If Google left the EU entirely there’d be even fewer competitors in the digital ads space.

This may be true in the very short term, but leaving a big hole in the market like that creates an opportunity for new players that would have otherwise avoided the space because it was controlled by a monopoly.

link
boycott-israel 1105 days ago
holy shit are you 12 or just slow?
link