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A comment on Microsoft / Activision deal prevented to protect innovation and choice in gaming. Parent comment

Re:Microsoft / Activision deal prevented to protect innovati... by pavlov on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @09:26AM (#35713312)
They can issue fines to Microsoft UK and ultimately block Microsoft from the market.

UK is 67 million people, so not as big as USA and EU, but significant enough that in balance it’s not worth the perpetual multi-year headache that Microsoft would have explaining the situation to shareholders if they were not to comply.

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Re:Microsoft / Activision deal prevented to protect innovati... by joshgree8888888 on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @09:30AM (#35713347)
They would never be allowed to block Microsoft from the market though - the NHS runs on windows, and basically every other arm of our government - surely the fines wouldn't ever be more than the gain due to the merger?
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Re:Microsoft / Activision deal prevented to protect innovati... by pavlov on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @09:34AM (#35713418)
In antitrust fines are generally not capped, since the whole point is to make giant companies pay attention. The EU fined Google 2.4B euros in 2017, then 4.3B again the following year. Even for Google, 7 billion USD isn’t play money.

A market block wouldn’t have to be all or nothing. Maybe start with the offending products: Activision games, Microsoft’s cloud gaming service, etc.

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