Cost of doing business. Such fines should be percentages after a flat part, otherwise it has virtually no corrective effect. If by the comp breach they gained 1.5 billion, it was totally worth it.
this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2026
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You don't understand. Most of the worlds retirement accounts are heavily invested in these too-big-to-fail corporations. The worlds richest upper percentiles are directly tied to the profitability of the richest thousand corporations. If we start holding these criminals accountable for their crimes, that means less money for you and all the "uncle toms" that help perpetuate the late stage capitalist oligarchy. We couldn't have that now, could we? Remember how much you like money? How much you like products? Who needs ethics or morality when you have money?
oh lovely, a fine amounting to 0.8% of their cash-on-hand. that'll show 'em.
edit to crowd source checking my shitty math:
Google Cash-on-hand ≈ €111 billion Fine ≈ €900 million
(900,000,000 / 111,000,000,000) * 100 = 0.8
if I'm an idiot please be nice about it lmao
The real threat is what happens when Alphabet doesn't comply with the ruling. This is a warning shot to make them behave.
Google is required to comply with the Commission's decisions within 60 days, otherwise it risks periodic penalty payments of up to 5% of its total worldwide turnover.
that has no teeth when they can just pay the tiny fine.
its like saying "you better pay me a dollar today or I'll charge you $20 tomorrow!"
google is like "lol here's a dollar, we complied. also we earned $1000 working up this massive $1 fine. of course were paying on time, why would I want to put a late fee on my rounding error of a fine?"
The periodic penalty comes into play if Google does not change the crap they were sentenced for. Ultimately, what the EU wants is that Google plays by the rules.
Only??? The fines should be well into the billions. €100B would have been much more effective.