Alphabet lost a week’s profits in Google EU fine
Google is potentially losing 5.85 days worth of profit in a record breaking 4.1 billion judgement against them in an antitrust suit. Euro or US Dollar, we’re at 1:1 at the moment it looks like. This is for doing the same basic things Microsoft did with Internet Explorer when whey got hit with a record… checks notes… nothing penalty it looks like.
The judgement, unless overturned, will most likely be passed along to consumers in the form of 15% more advertising.
The verdict came after claims that Google squashed competition by imposing unlawful restrictions on the manufacturers of Android devices and mobile operators in order to establish itself as the dominant/go-to search engine.
Google has been fined twice in the past in EU courts for similar google-preferential antitrust behavior so they’re currently out about 8.01 billion in the past seven years, or a little over one day’s profits a year. At an average of 1.63 days of lost profits a year, this might just get racked up to the cost of doing business. I can’t imagine there’s much incentive to change even with 4 billion going into the EU.
It’s interesting. It sounds like a huge number, but based on Android market penetration of 80% in the EU that comes down to around 11 Euro/Dollars for every Android user, which when you consider how the advertising data sales work is… not particularly much. Just in the scope there probably looking at 3% returned a year to just keep doing what they’re doing, which is working.
I don’t think this is much of a deterrent. That said, I have no opinion on the EU case against Google. I’ve got my own love/hate relationship with them that doesn’t involve their advertising side at the moment.
[CNBC]
