Google was trying to gain the Chinese market by implementing political censorship. And once they knelt and swore allegiance to the Chinese regime, every other totalitarian regime around the world would be lining up with demands that they do the same in their countries.

Expecting Google to stand up to EU on anything is naïve. They already got massive fines, they don’t have the spine to risk more. They will do as the commisars dictates, whether they’re split up or not.

I'm super glad that google didn't go through with dragonfly and it's really sad that they even went as far as they did. However, going through with it would have just made them the same as basically every other company.

Apple, microsoft, and basically every other company all operate in china, following chinese "law". Ironically, it's two of the worst/most hated companies (google, facebook) in the US, and most frequently demanded to be broken up here on HN, are two of the very, very few companies that haven't bent over for china.

In other words, their refraining from Dragonfly wasn’t because of moral courage or a principled stance. It was just to avoid a PR disaster.

And it was only because Dragonfly was leaked that that we ever heard of it. Imagine what other interesting programs they’ve got going on that we haven’t heard of yet.

Right now the only country that could actually do anything about Google is the US, but they won't because we benefit from having the number one internet search company be American.

Also, the rank and file employees in Google are largely liberal and tend to make a big fuss over things like censorship. If Google is broken up a company that is more friendly to state interference could emerge and take it's place.