So they are perfectly happy to admit liability and pay up, as long as they aren't forced to publicise that admission to the people that the court case itself was on behalf of.
This time, yes, because it's about privacy and the CNIL can't do much more than 150,000€.
But France also asks Google for 1 billion € of unpaid taxes over the last years, and this time I guess they will really try to avoid paying (hopefully they won't be able to, but we'll see).
American billion or European billion? In this case I think the distinction is important (I guess it's the first case... the latter would be... big, very big, hugely, mindbogglingly big)
Like I said, 1 billion €, so a "European billion". Yes it is a lot of money. But even more so is the amount of money that Google earned in France and managed not to declare to the fisc (the French tax administration).
To clarify, a European billion is an American trillion [1] (an American billion is a European milliard), which is why RBerenguel said "the latter would be... big, very big, hugely, mindbogglingly big."
Sure, it's almost the definition of tax (it should be less than the amount earned.) I hope they pay, it's not like we are floating in money in Europe currently.
But France also asks Google for 1 billion € of unpaid taxes over the last years, and this time I guess they will really try to avoid paying (hopefully they won't be able to, but we'll see).