This is a dangerous ruling that pushes the world further into the potential for trade wars by proxy.
Contrary to numerous posts-
-no, the law isn't "clear". This is an incredibly nuanced situation, and the notion that Google was just overtly flouting (ed: thx sjcsjc) the law is outright nonsense. Google has a huge litany of bad practices (I personally recently switched my daily driver to an iPhone for that reason), but simply saying "Surprise....enormous fine" is ridiculous.
-the fine is enormous. Various "well it's only a quarter's earnings across all of Google" are outrageous. Over 6 years Google spent a grand total of $1.1B in all expenses for Waymo, for instance. $5B is an enormous, enormous amount of money for any company.
I highly doubt this will be a "pay it and forget it" fine, but is going to ring across all multinationals as a warning.
Contrary to numerous posts-
-no, the law isn't "clear". This is an incredibly nuanced situation, and the notion that Google was just overtly flouting (ed: thx sjcsjc) the law is outright nonsense. Google has a huge litany of bad practices (I personally recently switched my daily driver to an iPhone for that reason), but simply saying "Surprise....enormous fine" is ridiculous.
-the fine is enormous. Various "well it's only a quarter's earnings across all of Google" are outrageous. Over 6 years Google spent a grand total of $1.1B in all expenses for Waymo, for instance. $5B is an enormous, enormous amount of money for any company.
I highly doubt this will be a "pay it and forget it" fine, but is going to ring across all multinationals as a warning.