China Launches Antitrust Investigation Into Google

China said Tuesday it has launched an antitrust investigation into Google, part of a swift retaliation after the U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a 10% tariff on Chinese goods. From a report: The probe by China's State Administration for Market Regulation will examine alleged monopolistic practices by the U.S. tech giant, which has had its search and internet services blocked in China since 2010 but maintains operations there primarily focused on advertising.

if found guilty what would be the penalty?

[williamyf]

As TFS says, google does not operate in china,except for a (relatively) small advertising branch...

Seems to me that if google is found guilty, they will completely witdraw from the chinese market and let the western arms of the chinese companies (or their distributors) buy ads outside of china, and in $ instead of rmb

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[larryjoe]

As TFS says, google does not operate in china,except for a (relatively) small advertising branch...

Seems to me that if google is found guilty, they will completely witdraw from the chinese market and let the western arms of the chinese companies (or their distributors) buy ads outside of china, and in $ instead of rmb

That's only if China only intended for a small symbolic jab at the US (Google would just be a pawn). If China were serious about a punishment, they would copy the US policy of secondary effects. Something like ... go after things related to Google, like the assembly of electronics that are assembled in China, like TPUs and Pixel phones. If course, this would also have the same negative effects as the US embargo of GPUs and high-end chip manufacturing equipment, i.e., decrease American company revenue while

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[AmiMoJo]

China has announced export restrictions on key raw materials as well. Rather than screw themselves Trump-style by wrecking their lucrative manufacturing services industry, they are making American companies even more reliant on them because domestic manufacturers will have to pay top dollar for the materials they need.

When you look at the detail it's pretty clear that China has been planning this carefully for a long time. They even made it very clear what they would do back in Trump's first term, when they

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[Bert64]

And with no user focused services, it's not selling ads that target china - it's allowing chinese companies to advertise to foreigners.
All this would do is reduce the ability of chinese companies to advertise their services to foreign audiences.

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[AmiMoJo]

Most Chinese phones use Android, although Huawei has their own OS that they are licencing now. The sanctions spurred innovation.

If they decide that Android is too much of a monopoly they might rule that the licencing terms are too onerous and thus invalid, meaning Chinese companies are free to make Android devices that don't include Google apps or have Google as the default search engine, for the export market. That would be a huge blow because there are several big markets, such as India, where it could re

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[Surak_Prime]

Wouldn't it be hilarious if everyone including Google assumes they mean Chinese anti-trust laws... and then China turns over everything they've found on how Google is violating EU and US anti-trust laws to relevant prosecutors in those jurisdictions?

Re: China doing what the US will not

[drinkypoo]

Most people are still dumb though, so traveling Americans are still getting yelled at by people who blame them who assume they support insanity.

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[olsmeister]

If you look at the retaliatory tariffs and actions, it's pretty obvious that China is using a light touch at this time. I suspect they just wanted to get some things out there that they can easily take back down the road as part of negotiations. They are not seriously trying to inflict pain at this time. Not to say that couldn't happen later on.

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[sabbede]

They don't have much leverage when it comes to tariffs. The balance of trade is so lopsided that there aren't many things upon which they can place an effective tariff. What they've done since is to put tariffs on things that they don't really import a lot of from the US anyhow, and they haven't placed a tariff on the products they do buy (like pork).

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[DrMrLordX]

One problem with running such a huge trade surplus with a foreign country is that you can't really hurt them by refusing to buy their goods and services.

What are they gonna do about it?

[sentiblue]

China has been, still is and will never stop being a bully... a stupid one at that. Google is banned in China. Even if they can accuse Google of some crime, what can they do about it? There's absolutely nothing they can do about anything that doesn't happen inside their borders.

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[HiThere]

This makes them different from the US in what way?

Actually, historically China has usually been so isolationist that they barely acknowledged that other countries existed, but, yeah, when they did they played power politics. Which is why we should have supported VietNam rather than fighting there.

Is it a joke?

[Wolfier]

Probably a show to their own people that they're actually doing *something* about it, while the actual measure doesn't carry much actual consequence in practice.

Wake me up when Google search isn't banned in that country.