€150,000 is a drop in Google's ocean.<p>Better would be to fine any public company a percentage of their market cap or something comparative that matches the fine to the size of the company.<p>That would provide a true penalty that discourages large multi-nationals from abusing local laws.
That would be a very harsh penalty for me. I'm not sure if my dry cleaner would survive a fine like that either, but I'm not sure about their cash reserves.
Just a note: 150,000€ is indeed the maximum penaltly allowed by law for this, see <a href="http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexteArticle.do;jsessionid=6BC8BF44AE3B0026A0D3466947518B0C.tpdjo05v_3?idArticle=LEGIARTI000023784589&cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006068624&dateTexte=20140108" rel="nofollow">http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexteArticle.do;jsession...</a>
Google's right to fight these charges. Things like the EU cookie directive are stupid laws that allow legislators to pretend to be doing something but do nothing beyond making websites less user friendly.
How much damage was caused by Google? What amount($) of damage?
Did citizens complain in court?
Who was hurt?
Is this punishment "just in case" Google becomes Evil?
In contrast, governments have a proven track record in this domain, and the french gov just passed new laws <i>against</i> online privacy that even the NSA wouldn't dare dream of.
Guess what? People talk about Google, not about these laws.
Frankly, I'm not sure why Google puts up with France's shit anyway. I would have thrown my hands up with that news snippet thing and simply stopped using the news snippets or listing those news sites in France. After those sites saw a massive drop in traffic, I'm sure they'd leave Google alone. For a little while, at least.
Fixed fines are silly, make it a percentage of revenue or profit. Give them a real incentive to change.<p>This sort of thing is done with speeding fines in several countries (link: <a href="http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/295905?tp=1" rel="nofollow">http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/295905?tp=1</a>)
EU: next time when you make a law, allow a penalty of 150,000,000 Euro for starters. After repeated violations increase to 1,500,000,000 . Double each year. Then Google will listen.