Is anyone surprised that Google didn't come from Europe, and the next one isn't either?<p>Good for Europe. Go out there and extract that pound of flesh from the foreign company and show domestics what a powerful government regulator looks like, show them that their business is better started in another country.<p>Is what it is. Hope the tax revenue offsets the lack of innovation and talent flight.<p>But I think Google News and Spain demonstrate the reality of this situation, that regulators are dogs chasing cars who are praying they never catch it.<p>" In the end, Google in Europe could wind up as a very different thing than Google at home."<p>Are Europeans not upset that they're being forced into sub-standard foreign technology by their government for which they have no superior domestic alternative, also suppressing domestic innovation as innovators seek greener regulatory pasture, all in the name of today's tax revenue?
I feel like all large companies run into this wall eventually. The 'head' loves to talk about welcoming competition and capitalism and all that, but the 'body' acts as-if it hates a level playing field. They tie unrelated products, predatory pricing, bundle their browser into random installers to trick people into installing it, pay other companies for preferential treatment, lock you into their platform, act like a bully, and do everything except letting individual products succeed or fail on their own merits in a free market.
At least these cases seem a little more reasonable than the Microsoft case. Windows N was the dumbest product ever. No consumer wanted that. No consumer benefited from it's existence. Complete waste of time and effort.<p>Eliminating Google's stranglehold on search would be good for consumers I think. I'm not quite sure about the others. None of the write-ups seem to do a particularly good job summarizing the complaints. So I can't tell what the precise complaint is or what the improved consumer situation is speculated to be.
"Europe" isn't doing anything of the sort. The EU is. Europe is a continent on the western part of Eurasia. The EU is a corrupt, anti-democractic bloated bureaucracy where the wheels are continually greased by the interests and demands of multi-billion dollar lobbying organisations. It's good to see the article allude to this in the first paragraph. It's just a shame that it doesn't come under much scrutiny in general, as it's of huge importance to people living in Europe in areas under the control of the EU.
I am not a fan of the "Right to be forgotten" but I am an even less happy with the idea that just because they are so good are providing searching that somehow they aren't allowed to favor their own interests. Are we to treat them as a utility or such simply because they spent the time and effort to become so good?
"Don't be evil." -- Google, early 2000's [1]<p>[1] - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil</a><p>Edit: Despite the strong HN bias I will keep this comment.