EU: Competition Commissioner met Google chief Schmidt The European Commission is remaining tight-lipped about what was said in a meeting yesterday between Google supremo Eric Schmidt and Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager. A Commission spokesman would only confirm that the meeting had taken place, but would not reveal the substance. But that hasn’t stopped rampant …
Never been sure what to think about Schmidt. I mean, he's obviously necessary - the US Political Beast would eat a pureblood Googlegeek's naive quivering heart for breakfast, but I don't think the US political textbooks have anything on how to train a Kaiju-grade corporation for anything other than combat and survival.
At least the combined assault from the world's governments is keeping him distracted from any thoughts of world domination atm.
Like when banks and big companies meet with HMRC, the end result will be the authorities roll over and cut a cushy deal with big company but you don't know why.
And a year or two later, the official leaves his/her post and ends up working for the same big company on an enormous salary, based of course on their 'huge' experience in the field.
I imagine Vince Cable almost cannot wait to be ejected from office until he can take up valuable consulting gigs with the banks he sold of Royal Mail to for half price based on a 'gentleman's agreement' that they wouldn't sell their shares on the first day (which they did).
you are dealing with narcisistic fools. They just can't understand why you wouldn't want to give them all your money.
The fact is that the entire EU Government is a bunch of whiny crybabies that were raised with way too much self esteem. They take EVERYTHING as an affront to their existence or they threaten to take their ball and go home. They cannot ever compete on an equal playing field, they change the rules to satisfy their convoluted and arcane "legislation" so that anyone who builds a better mousetrap has to pay them for the mere "privilige" of existence. They are so full of themselves that they lost sight of the fact that they don't have any legal standing over companies that exist outside the EU.
Whatever happens, it's going to take years. Almunia tried to solve this the quick way, and that ended up taking so long he couldn't manage to end it during his term.
And now, it's starting all over again from the beginning. In two years, maybe we'll know whether litigation will happen. And if it does, it will take ten years. And by the time it's over the whole thing will be irrelevant.
Of course the commissioner does not want to talk about what was said because in all likelihood nothing of substance was said regardless of what iCOMP light like to think was going to happen. It will have been the new commissioner being introduced to her nemesis.
Schmidt only has to threaten to pull out of Europe and the politicos will be quaking. And he has a handy demo available in Spain where they switched off a loss making service they don't care about. Even before Google switched off, Spanish newspapers went crying to the Spanish politicians - the same ones that cause Google to switch the service off in the first place.
The EU commission may like to delude itself that it is able to fine or meaningfully punish Google. It may even believe it should do as a representative of the people. The truth is that if Google were fined any substantial amount and it suspended operations in Europe, EU businesses would be in a mess instantly. That reality will prevent any action Google regards as punitive not just symbolic.
Google has done a lot more than this article shows or the EU realises to create a dominant position.
The changes it made to Google Analytics mean that website owners only have a fractional subset of data UNLESS they advertise with Google. You used to get 250,000 keywords and history to the beginning of time, now you get a few thousand (not even the best) and over a few months.
That in itself is anti competitive because a website owner can't use that information (gained from a dominant browser) to advertise on Bing (Yahoo).
In addition to that they cut off access to mobile search which has now overtaken desktop search, they used to provide this but no more.
Google bots amass data with their search engine, spy with their browser and toolbar tools on other browser, it is no wonder that nobody else has a chance to compete.
ON top of that they avoid their taxes via Luxembourg, the solution that is to slap a new rate of VAT at 60% on the business they do with British companies, that could be avoided if they paid corporation tax on their UK business.
The Google Mantra is Don't be Evil but the full version is
Don't be evil, only we are allowed to be evil.
If you are going to spend any money on advertising, why spend it on a lower tier player that gives you less than Google does?
Why would ANY company give you a break on information if you were just going to turn around and use it on a competitors site to advertise on.
If you didn't realize it, Microsoft(Bing), Yahoo and Google are dire competitors. They are under no compunction legal or otherwise, to cooperate with each other.
By the way, EVERYONE avoids taxes by using Luxemborg, Switzerland or some other tax haven. Including British companies. Tax "Avoidance" is NOT ILLEGAL.
If you don't like THAT then change the tax law that you obviously don't understand.
You folks just think you can arbitrarily tax companies you don't like at an ANTI-competitive rate. THAT is patently illegal.
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