Originally published at: https://tidbits.com/2019/03/21/european-commission-fines-google-e1-49-billion/
The European Commission has fined Google €1.49 billion for what it’s calling abusive advertising practices, but even that stunning amount isn’t close to the largest fine the EC has levied against the search giant. And it pales in comparison to Google’s revenues.
And Google’s stock went up, probably due to confirmation of the amount of the fine, so it was no longer an unknown.
At least these fines have been in the billions—you see announcements of one of these companies getting fined a few million and you know it’s chump change to them. Seems like we need a different method of punishing bad behavior.
Yes, the thought occurred to me during the whole Christchurch shooting when the footage was being streamed and Facebook removed over 1.5M uploads over the course of the day, what if, just what if… they had to shut down until they cleared it or set up some effective filtration that would cope with any attempt to upload it.
I like that idea, Tommy.
These companies have created a situation they cannot manage. And when push come to shove we accept excuses like “it’s difficult” or “it’s expensive”. When actually, we could chose to just respond that since they created the mess they were expected to clean it up. And if they can’t or aren’t willing, well then it’s over for them. I’m pretty sure that would unleash previously never seen levels action. Much more so than a couple $1B fines (what is that, 20% of quarterly earnings?).