[rixed]

I have no opinion about this particular case at hand, but decades of observations of how governments, esp. in Europe, "regulate" IT by targetting a few big players, and Google always first in line despite that company has been _historically_ the most careful with users data, have convinced me that this has little to do with protection of citizens privacy and much more to do with forcing those whole encompassing corporations to cooperate with governments own surveillance agendas.

[seanhunter]

Firstly regulators go after the big players because they have finite resources and that’s the easiest way for them to have a lot of leverage versus trying to play whack a mole with thousands of tiny companies who can easily shut down and change name in the event of a regulatory action.

Secondly the idea that google are particularly singled out flies in the face of the significant actions by european data regulators against meta and all the other big tech companies.

Thirdly the idea that google are particularly careful with users data is pretty laughable.

[rixed]

> the idea that google are particularly careful with users data is pretty laughable

Either you don't know what you are talking about, or we attach very different meanings behind some of these words. Let me rephrase : of all companies, institutions or associations that I've been able to glance from the inside in my already quite long carrier, Google was by far the one where user data was the most secured, from unlegitimate access from the outside world or from the employees alike.

Also, of all the big internet corporations, I've read many stories about facebook or microsoft (amongst others) cooperating with the most repressive regimes. On rare occasion where I could read about some big corp prefering to loose a market rather than user trust, each time it was either Apple or Google. Granted, it was many years ago; But already after Google was regularly presented by EU "opinion makers" like the most evil of corporations.

Witnessing this and the ensuing downward trajectory of morale in big IT corporations, I half-jokingly developped the theory that maybe corporations are like little children: they behave just as well as they are expected to. If you constantly tell them that they are immoral and stupid, then they become just that.