I find it a bit strange that these issues arouse such strong feelings of patriotism in some posters - to take the example of Apple, weren't they keeping billions of dollars offshore to avoid US taxes, and isn't that a thoroughly unpatriotic act? You could argue US consumers also benefit from many of these rulings.<p>Also if I were to indulge in a little whataboutism I would point out that many accuse the US of far worse in exploiting vulnerable debtor countries through the World Bank and IMF; the idea of the poor, defencelessness US megacorp at the mercy of the villanous EU is risible.
All the highlighted cases seem entirely reasonable uses of regulation to me.<p>Do we want companies to be free to take payments from Intel to not use AMD, or run a cartel?
Amazing that the EU is able to levy multi-billion dollar fines basically for attempting to monetize a free operating system, whereas in the US and Britain, felony conspiracies, price-fixing, and fraud get milquetoast slaps on the wrist.
These kind of regulations is just another form of protectionism.<p>Is any make the life of Europeans easier? I don’t think so. It did kill any risks of having a real EU startup ecosystem despite being the first economy zone in the world.
> fined a record €2.4 billion ($2.7 billion) for using its search engine to steer internet users towards its own shopping platform<p>The EU is totally bonkers!!! And these fines are largely uncalled for. It's their site; why shouldn't a business up-sell to their customers? I know plenty of people who do it all the time. That's part of the point of being in business. If a user doesn't want to buy from Google, simply don't click the buy button.