Google should be broken up, say European MPs

Re:Google should be broken up, say European MPs by bad_user on Thursday November 27, 2014 @08:46AM (#8667232)

Problem is Microsoft is no longer dominating the market of operating systems, especially if you're counting mobile devices and absolutely every OS now comes with a bundled browser that you cannot uninstall. So apparently, if the US would have decided to break Microsoft, it would have been a huge mistake, potentially killing a big software company that was disrupted by newer technology anyway.

So you know, abusive companies should be punished. But lets be honest here, politicians are targeting the likes of Microsoft, Google or Apple not for our own good, but because they see a huge pie that isn't theirs and want a piece of it, with people forgetting that these companies have defined the huge markets they are dominating in.

And I'm saying this as a European citizen that had plenty of diatribes against all 3 companies mentioned here - but I do not believe in government interventions when it comes to software and yes, I don't believe in net neutrality either.

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Re:Google should be broken up, say European MPs by meowface on Thursday November 27, 2014 @03:54PM (#8668702)

I believe net neutrality is important because telcos are not the same as software companies. Anyone can theoretically compete with a software company; if you're a telco with billions of dollars worth of infrastructure and you're the only option for a huge chunk of the country, the only people who even have a chance of competing are companies of similar size (like Google).

For many people in the US, they're completely stuck with Comcast or Verizon and likely will be for decades to come (Google Fiber's complete roll out will obviously take a very long time). They either have to move, or suck it up.

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