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Re:Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, L... by econ4all on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @10:44AM (#17662914)
Not to interrupt another google bashing session on this site or stop an EU person from self-righteously patting themselves on the back but conflating several issues to justify political reprisal is exactly what's wrong with the EU's fine issuance regime and ad-hominem attacks on companies to try and justify the practice to yourself doesn't make it look better.

Also "anti-trust" is an american term with historical context (you use the generic term), we invented the practice, and unlike you we don't use it as a political and protectionist tool.

Re:Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, L... by fixermark on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @11:19AM (#17663256)
It's a different standard of measurement. American anti-trust is about preventing a monopoly from harming consumers via perverse incentives; European anti-trust is about preventing a competitor from driving other laborers out of the market (less emphasis placed on the end-result to the consumer).

Case in point (though it was France-specific, it highlights the difference in viewpoint): Amazon was fined by the French government because their discounts + Amazon Prime discount exceeded a legal limit of how deep a discount you were allowed to give on books. That limit was in place due to lobbying efforts by the book-seller's guild; it has nothing to do with bringing consumers the lowest price possible and everything to do with preventing individual sellers from driving each other out of business via short-term loss-leading discounts. Whether or not Amazon could offer its discounts because of more-efficient processes that minimize their overhead (such as being able to ship books to people only when needed instead of holding a bunch of brick-and-mortar real-estate to locally warehouse unsold merchandise) doesn't even enter into the discussion---drop below the critical price, pay the fine.

Re:Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, L... by ionised on Thursday August 02, 2018 @08:08AM (#17670811)
> It's a different standard of measurement. American anti-trust is about preventing a monopoly from harming consumers via perverse incentives; European anti-trust is about preventing a competitor from driving other laborers out of the market (less emphasis placed on the end-result to the consumer).

Which is odd, as I would say the EU have a far more impressive record of protecting the consumer than the US has.