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Comment by Y_Y | Hacker News Reader

> A Google spokesperson added: "We have acted in good faith throughout the entire process. The fine ignores our efforts to reach an agreement, and the reality of how news works on our platforms."

If only everyone would just accept our reality!

(Honestly I don't really believe in copyrighting news facts, but at this point it's just nice to see Google get fined.)

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>(Honestly I don't really believe in copyrighting news facts, but at this point it's just nice to see Google get fined.)

It's disturbing to see how people support bad practices just because they are used against Google. Do you hate Google THAT much that nothing matters if they are hurt?

Do you hate Google THAT much that nothing matters if they are hurt?

Google has seriously damaged its brand in the past decade. People feel very strongly that Google's invasions of everyone's privacy, their erosion of internet freedom, and their blatant tax avoidance warrants significant punishment. It's not surprising that governments around the world are starting to see Google (and other SV companies) as a form of piggy bank that they can tap for funds occasionally. It's both lucrative and a vote winner.

Besides HN and similar small tech-conscious circles, I've never heard anybody complain about Google's privacy practices or Apple's walled garden.

You should try to get out more then.

Or maybe you should? Going by comments on hn or reddit, you'd think that everybody thinks that amazon was a horrible company (eg. poor treatment of workers, fakes/counterfeits problem, fake reviews, monopolization), yet the surveys show that most people have favorable views of the company[1].

[1] https://www.gwern.net/docs/sociology/2021-harrispoll-juneusa...

What I love about surveys like that one is that 2% of the 2006 people asked said they've never heard of the U.S Military.

explained by this: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...

I don't hate Google at all. I don't think it would be controversial to say that they seem to have a lot of power relative to the legislatures of the countries they operate in, and it seems like they are able to skirt laws regarding e.g. anti-competitive behaviour, data protection, consumer rights. I don't like the law that they are alleged to have violated here, but I am glad to see proof that it is possible that action is taken against them if they do violate whatever laws they should operate under.

> [...] but I am glad to see proof that it is possible that action is taken against them if they do violate whatever laws they should operate under.

I don't think that was ever in question?

Copyright applies to all equally, maybe we will finally get some lobbying to change it if it hurts billion dollar companies enough. Until then they can suffer under it the same way everyone else does.

Google does not get to decide the judicial reality in France. Or anywhere. Maybe in the US?

> Do you hate Google THAT much that nothing matters if they are hurt?

Pretty much as long as it's not completely unreasonable.

Bad practices are used by american mega corporations all the time, it is nice to see them get a dose of their own medicine.

> (Honestly I don't really believe in copyrighting news facts, but at this point it's just nice to see Google get fined.)

So because you don't like Google, it's OK to see them fined for just any bullshit reason?

> (Honestly I don't really believe in copyrighting news facts, but at this point it's just nice to see Google get fined.)

Insane attitude IMHO opinion. This isn't supporting a football team this is about fairness and reasonable laws.

Astonishing that a mere corporation thinks they have the right to negotiate with a nation-state and "come to an agreement."

Would that I could negotiate having to comply with laws that affect me.

They were talking about negotiations with news publishers for revenue-sharing (i.e. legalized racketeering).

I hope they don’t cave disgracefully like in Australia and just shut down Google News and remove news sites from the search index in France as they did in Belgium a few years back IIRC. I am a Frenchman and very skeptical of Google, for the record, but rent-seeking by failed businesses should not be condoned, like the copyright levy charged on data storage devices here.

> [...] just shut down Google News and remove news sites from the search index in France [...]

AFAIU the French regulators decreed that Google can't not link, either [0]. It's quite a paradox: Google needs to pay to show snippets or even just linking to French (EU) news sites, but can't not show snippets/link either.

[0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/04/french-regulator...

People and companies have a right to make representations when they’re subject to things like fines yes. So would you if you were fined.

Have you heard of the legal system?

They were ordered by the government to come to an agreement with the publishers.

Plea bargains are pretty much negotiation with the state for individuals...

Plea bargains are in fact not a universal thing and illegal in quite a few countries.

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