Sadly it doesn’t, Google is currently the most profitable company on the planet, with them making 120 billion in pure profit 2024 and estimated to make even more this year, so this fine, for anticompetitive stuff going back to 2014, is less than 2.5% of their one year profit.
And there’s absolutely zero chance that they gained less than 3 billion from that, so this fine is just part of the cost of doing business.
That’s like the median income family in the US ($84k) getting hit with a ~$1k fine (remember, profit comes after expenses are paid) because they didn’t pay their taxes for over a decade, with no requirement of actually paying any of those taxes.
Look I am all for increasing fines but people need to stop discussing a fine’s impact in terms of global revenue etc… It is useful but in cases like this the question is do you think that 2.5% of their profits came from this one action, because if not then it was a net loss and the fine will discourage it going forward because it doesn’t make sense.
I would much rather over tune the fine than make it a cost of doing business, in general accountants think backwards to most people and they won’t tell the higher ups to change anything until it really affects the bottom line.
Yeah, just as they promised. For every fee they up the numbers. This time they are also ready to do more than hurting their wallets directly, which is much more interesting.
Otherwise Google will just treat is as a cost of doing business.
Finally the fee numbers are starting to look appropriate for the size of the fucking company. Would love to see a few more 0’s though
Sadly it doesn’t, Google is currently the most profitable company on the planet, with them making 120 billion in pure profit 2024 and estimated to make even more this year, so this fine, for anticompetitive stuff going back to 2014, is less than 2.5% of their one year profit.
And there’s absolutely zero chance that they gained less than 3 billion from that, so this fine is just part of the cost of doing business.
That’s like the median income family in the US ($84k) getting hit with a ~$1k fine (remember, profit comes after expenses are paid) because they didn’t pay their taxes for over a decade, with no requirement of actually paying any of those taxes.
Look I am all for increasing fines but people need to stop discussing a fine’s impact in terms of global revenue etc… It is useful but in cases like this the question is do you think that 2.5% of their profits came from this one action, because if not then it was a net loss and the fine will discourage it going forward because it doesn’t make sense.
I would much rather over tune the fine than make it a cost of doing business, in general accountants think backwards to most people and they won’t tell the higher ups to change anything until it really affects the bottom line.
Its worth remembering that EU fines are not one and done, if you don’t fix the problem they fine you repeatedly.
Yeah, just as they promised. For every fee they up the numbers. This time they are also ready to do more than hurting their wallets directly, which is much more interesting.
Otherwise Google will just treat is as a cost of doing business.