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A comment on Google made plans to target the EU official in charge of digital policy updates. Parent comment

Re:Google made plans to target the EU official in charge of ... by realusername on Sunday November 15, 2020 @12:45PM (#25103066)
To be honest, all of those contributions could also attributed to local competitors which are doing the same thing if Google would disappear, there's competitors in the search and maps area, and unlike Google, they do pay taxes and bring local jobs, hence why the commission isn't receptive much to Google's arguments... Additionally the Google competitors in the EU are so small that nobody really cares if those laws do impacts them as well...

Android is probably the only exception indeed but I don't think that's nearly enough of leverage to counter the current trend.

The issue is that Google optimized profit so much in the EU that they even get rid of their leverage there. I do think they are right to fight against those laws (and I'm also personally against them) but let's be fair, at this point nobody cares what Google says in the EU. There's an idea in the EU that impacting Google's business won't impact in any ways the local economy and that's hard to prove them wrong with the way Google is setup.

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Re:Google made plans to target the EU official in charge of ... by bluecalm on Sunday November 15, 2020 @01:11PM (#25103311)
The problem is EU regulators see industries impacted by Google but forget all the Google users who benefit tremendously from Google existence. It's the same with Amazon. If Amazon was based on Mars, shipped from there and never paid a penny in taxes it would still be valuable to have because cheap quality services make lives better. It's still the case of they kill several inefficient industries along the way. We would all be worse of just so French bookshop or German legacy media publisher can make money again.
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