[purringmeow]

the upper house of parliament yesterday voted to support an amendment to a draft economy bill that would require search engines to display at least three rivals on their homepage

That's just absurd. Can someone acquainted with the situation shed light on why they are doing this? Simple populism and lobbying from local businesses or something else?

[vinay427]

Not the answer you're looking for, but French protectionism (agriculture, film, etc.) is consistently stronger than the Western norm in the rest of Europe and the US. In those cases it is to protect domestic interests, which of course comes with its own consequences.

[ptaipale]

Consequences, like that the last time France had annual budget surplus was in 1974.

[seszett]

A time when France was a lot more protectionist and interventionist than today, actually.

[ptaipale]

Like all countries were; however, economic growth has been since stimulated by opening trade.

[higherpurpose]

Lobbying from local businesses? Ha!

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/16/technology/microsoft-once-...

Microsoft is the puppet-master in all of this, it seems.

[aikah]

> Can someone acquainted with the situation shed light on why they are doing this?

Hard to explain, even for a french person. That's why I basically want to move ASAP, at least abroad I'll care less about politics.

It tragically funny, there is like 10% unemployment rate in France right now, and instead of trying to give businesses some air, ie less laws and regulations, they keep on coming with ridiculous ones.

[bane]

I've found that whenever the media or lawmakers get caught up in some absolutely useless bullshit, they're almost always trying to distract from something more important that they can't address (or caused). It seems to hold no matter what country it is.

[glass-]

No more or less absurd than Microsoft being forced to advertise rival web browsers.

[plorkyeran]

A bit more absurd. A closer analogy would be if Windows was required to ask you on first startup if you wanted to install Linux (i.e. advertising a competitor to the thing you're using vs. a thing bundled with the thing you're using).

[oh_sigh]

Not only on the first startup, but on every use.

[protomyth]

They did it to Microsoft in Windows to do the browser selection, so its a pretty small step in their minds to do it to Google. Its still absurd, but it fits their thinking.