Google's Adtech Business Set To Face Formal EU Probe By Year-End (reuters.com) 4
Alphabet unit Google could face its biggest regulatory threat, with EU antitrust regulators set to open a formal investigation into its lucrative digital advertising business before the end of the year, said people familiar with the matter. From a report: It would mark a new front by the EU competition enforcer against Google. It has in the last decade fined the company more than 8 billion euros ($9.8 billion) for blocking rivals in online shopping, Android smartphones and online advertising. An EU probe would focus on Google's position vis-a-vis advertisers, publishers, intermediaries and rivals, one of the people said, indicating deeper scrutiny than the French antitrust agency's case concluded last week. Google made $147 billion in revenue from online ads last year, more than any other company in the world. Ads on its properties, including search, YouTube and Gmail, accounted for the bulk of sales and profits. About 16% of revenue came from its display or network business, in which other media companies use Google technology to sell ads on their website and apps.
I don't see how online ads make so much $$$ (Score:2, Interesting)
I think Alphabet is scamming the hell out of these companies.
The Story So Far... (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is that US tech giants got big because they were allowed to commit industrial scale tax avoidance (and sometimes evasion) undercutting local competition and giving the US a near monopoly in tech giants. Any country trying to legislate to fix the problem got hammered by the US government and threatened with tarrifs, the US' allies were forced to accept this unnatural growth of US tech.
The only exceptions are in places like Russia and China that didn't give a shit what the US thinks and so in turn hit US companies to counter this artificial growth, as such they have things like Vkontakte, Baidu, Alibaba et. al.
Europe wanted to stay friendly with the US so rather than start a trade war accepted the forced allowance of tax avoidance and evasion, but in turn is drawing clear red lines in terms of competition law to counter unnatural US tech growth.
So for anyone trying to figure out why the EU is constantly coming down like a hawk on even the slightest hint of market abuse by US tech, that's why. Because for whatever reason whilst the US defends tax avoidance and evasion, and actively enforces it as a policy countries must accept with threats of economic damage against even it's allies, it doesn't seem to have much of an argument against tackling market abuse. I guess it would look too much like the bad guy if it sanctioned a country for this but feels it can get away with it on tax.
So that's why this charade will continue for now, maybe when Biden's new global tax plan comes into play we can see things become a little more sensible.
Ideally American big tech would've just paid tax owed from the outset and countries would've been allowed to fix loopholes without threat of sanctions, and US tech companies would've had to grow in competitive environments where they don't have a 20%+ cost advantage over local competition who do have to pay tax, but we are where we are I guess.
Re:The Story So Far... (Score:5, Interesting)
Google is nothing more than a worldwide data collection factory that makes the efforts of the NSA, CIA, FSB, MI5, MI6 and all the rest of the government spy agencies seem like childsplay.
Mind you, the likes of Facebook are catching up rapidly.
The EU having basked in the GDPR glow for a few years is now out to sort out the tax evasion/avoidance schemes that mostly American Tech companies have benefited from for years.
Watch this space for further developments. My guess is that the EU is hoping that the Biden Government is a bit more flexible than the 'No, No and No' of the Trump crowd.