Google’s Steely Foe in Europe
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
(...) jobless builders presented her with a gift: a life-size sculpture of a
hand with a raised middle digit. She keeps the artifact prominently
displayed on a coffee table at her office in the European Commission.
Got to love the Danes :)Really? Then why not go after banks, energy companies, telecom giants...?
As a consumer I have the choice to choose to trust google when I search for a product, however I have only two choices when I choose my ISP, or no option at all to choose my electricity provider.
Consumers don't depend on "them" to have fair and open competition, it's the companies that depend on the governments to have unfair or nonexistent competiton.
Banks:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-07-01/europe-ban...
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-1208_en.htm
Energy companies:
http://en.mercopress.com/2008/10/01/europe-fines-nine-oil-co...
Telecoms giants (incl. Deutsche Telekom):
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-39_en.htm
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-14-1140_en.htm
It seems that the standard response to the EU probing Google is to say it's unfair and "what about European companies" without actually doing any research into the matter.
Granted, not all countries have moved as fast when it comes to implementing, but over here there's a whole generation that doesn't even remember the time when we only had one telco and one electricity provider.