Google could be next in EU sights

Ok so then they need to go after Apple, AND every distro of linux,

Apple for bundling Safari and Linux for bundling Seamonkey, Firefox etc.

The EU is trying to make money in huge fine. this makes the legal system a complete joke

Google doesnt actually appear to be abusing its monopoly position like the others. OK you get pointless payed for results in the search engine but it doesnt got out of its way to keep those that havent payed hidden or attempt put them out of business.

This is more about the EU sending clear messages out that it's beginning to wake up as a power bloc and anyone wanting to trade there will have to do it by the EU rules soon rather than just walk in and continue behaving as though they're still in America.

The EU is bigger, has a higher population and far greater GDP (without he debt too!) than America so it's inevitable that they'll start influencing how companies do business more.

The long decline of EU countries started with socialism. The EU will eventually run out of companies to pillage, and the EU will continue its downward spiral. Until the people embrace freedom, the future looks grim for the EU. Without respect for private property there can be no freedom.

EU Countries aren't in decline and can't be called socialist by any standard of the word.

The only thing that's causing the EU (Especially my country, the UK) to go down hill is following the US's ridiculous levels of greed.

@Economic Expert

Anything you write about a population bloc of 500,000,000 people comprising 27 individual nation states using just 4 sentences is invariably going to be bland and trite. We'll try to do your expert comment justice though, shall we?

1) "The long decline of EU countries started with socialism." Not sure what you mean by this. Taking you at face value. Socialism as a concept is far older than the EU so you must mean that the EU has been in decline since its conception as the very non-socialist Coal & Steel union. What you probably mean knowing the way idiots like you think is, "the EU is forever embracing left-wing commie pinko socialist values and attacking business, it sucks!"

2) "The EU will eventually run out of companies to pillage, and the EU will continue its downward spiral." Even though I am well aware that GDP is a thoroughly useless measure of social equality and wealth and so on, by this economic indicator the EU has steadily being growing stronger and stronger. And yes, as long as corporations abuse their positions of monopoly, the EU will continue to pillage them. Yay for the EU!

3) "Until the people embrace freedom, the future looks grim for the EU." What freedom? The freedom to post comments like a moron? What freedom do I not exactly have here in my little corner of the EU? Are you talking about the freedom to do whatever you want and to hell with the consequences so that you and you alone profit? I'll pass on that freedom. Again, the EU is not homogeneous enough to make blanket assertions such as yours. I know homogeneous is a big word, sorry!

4) "Without respect for private property there can be no freedom." Christ, could you be any more vague? What type of property? In what way does the EU espouse collectivism? You do realise that most "real" socialists detest the EU because they see it as being too capitalist (whatever the hell that means) and these socialists feel that the EU runs counter to the more socialist traditions of the member states. In other words, stay away from the keyboard.

Please do post again when your Dad lets you use his laptop.

Let's see, do we want to take 1 trillion dollars from this USA company and give it to our own government (which is running deficits right now) or do we want to let the USA company keep the 1 trillion dollars in the USA?

There's no way--no freaking way--that any judge can be unbiased under those circumstances, unless he has active disdain for his own country (or, in this case, continent). You have to be un-patriotic to be a fair judge in that circumstance.

Just look at the baloney ruling in the Blackberry/RIM case in the USA. Even though the USA company's patent clearly was not being infringed by the Canadian company (because it was a poorly-drafted patent), the USA court ruled that it was being infringed, which instantly caused hundreds of billions of dollars to flow from Canada into the USA.

If Canadian judges had been deciding that case, I don't doubt for a second they would have found no infringement (the correct ruling). Not because Canadians are any more honest than Americans, but just because the correct ruling happens to square with billions of dollars staying in Canada.

There is a very real danger that anti-trust law will be abused to hurt foreign companies. When companies do business in foreign countries, they must submit to foreign law. They run the risk that their assets will be seized. The dictator Hugo Chavez takes assets outright, without pretending to be following the rule of law. He says he's "Caesar." If the EU abuses anti-trust law to punish American companies, American companies will stop doing business in Europe.

Intel deserved to get slapped, hard, for its anti-competition rebate scheme. So it's too early to say that the EU is going nuts with anti-business rulings to take money from America and give it to EU. But we should watch any Google case carefully.

Good money to be made, indeed. It's pretty hard to defend against a country who takes you to court in its own system, when it hates you anyway. All they're doing is making a list of US companies that benefit the most from EU sales, then they go down the line. Any other smaller company is already Eurpopean.

Anyone they know will not be able to pull business from the country without being heavily damaged, is targeted and basically taxed. Who's going to say otherwise? Nobody. They can't. It's their rules and you're screwed either way.

You seem to forget that all these rules and regulations that the EC (Korea and Japan) have have been around for a long long time, and the likes of Intel have been very aware of them.

So, you would have thought that if they thought these rules were unjust there would have been years of lobbying against them to get them changed. But no, they didn't, and now they're getting hammered in the EC, Korea and Japan.

I guess that makes Intel a combination of dumb as a week old cheeseburger, and as arrogant as an American Idol judge or contestant.

Heres Wiki Story:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google

If ANYONE, Even Mike or Paul, have Old TV Set with bunch of wires like 1996 first Googlier, lets Make It Happen. Can Split Monies One Way, With everyone.
Hehehe.

Google, as article in Wiki states is Bit of Mystery as to exact size & total whereabouts. Much is know, yet Google may be more software for TELCO use & Controled favortism, then specific sites, which may be crunchers & Regional HQ.

Googlee' Eyes Tom.