Margrethe Vestager – A Dane is Google's toughest opponent

Jean-Claude Juncker will be welcomed by Donald Trump at the White House next week. It is quite possible that the head of the Commission will have to listen again to the harsh criticisms of his Commissioner of Competition. For the second time in a year Vestager has imposed a high antitrust fine on the US giant Google: 4.34 billion euros to pay the company because it abusively exploits the dominant position of its operating system Android.

This is almost twice as much as last year. There, Vestager sentenced Google to a fine of 2.42 billion euros. "We have policies that help us calculate the penalty – it is the duration of the offense, its severity and the business turnover. let's pack that in our matrix, let's put the lever and – puff! – get out a number, "explained Vestager, explaining how the huge sum arrived.

" A very illegal behavior "

The parent company of Google Alphabet can even face such drastic penalties.In the first quarter of 2018, the US group made a profit of $ 9.4 billion.Nevertheless, the recent strike of Vestager is expected to hit hard the tech giants. At the same time, the commissioner also forced Google to stop using Android on its anti-competitive practices .. Otherwise threatened with other sensitive fines.

Never before has the EU's Competition Authority acted so harshly against a single company as against Google. It is a "very serious violation, a very illegal behavior," said the Commissioner. Google has been leveraging its market power since 2011 to stay in step with competitors' mobile devices.

More than 80% of smartphones and tablets around the world are equipped with Google's Android system. This dominant position is not in itself an infringement of antitrust law, according to the Commission. But Google has illegally linked mobile phone manufacturers and mobile operators to Android and its apps to eliminate competitors – in three ways.

First, the company requires Android device manufacturers to preinstall the Google search and web browser. Other manufacturers of such applications would therefore have no chance from the outset. Second, Google prevents smartphone and tablet manufacturers from installing operating systems other than Android. Third, Google encourages these manufacturers to offer financial incentives to include only Google apps on their devices.

Google has denied all claims: "Android has increased selection for all, not reduced.A dynamic ecosystem, a high rate of innovation and low prices are clbadic features of strong competition," said Sundar Pichai, president of the company. He announced that he would appeal the Commission's decision

. The main criticism of the Commission is that Google denies that users are linked to pre-installed applications. The choice is wide, easy installation. For example, several browsers have been downloaded hundreds of millions of times – programs that rival Chrome for their own offerings. In addition, device manufacturers are likely to offer smartphones with competing products. It's not so bad that Google apps are pre-installed at the time of smartphone delivery.

The Commission sees this differently and strives to get the statistics: only 1% of smartphone and tablet users would download the search engine application from a Google competitor, only 10% from another browser.

Strategy: The more people use the services of the Internet giant, the more data is collected and the more internal products can be optimized – outperforming competitors. It says over and over again: If nobody stops Google, everything will ultimately be determined by Google.

Many competitors of American society, Commissioner Vestager appears as a savior in the last need. The Danish sentence has imposed broad support in the technology industry in Europe. That Google has been put in the barriers, competition on mobile operating systems and catering applications, like the Fair Search organization, in which companies such as Trip Advisor and Expedia are organized.

"This punishment even hurts Google"

Because Google used "all the tricks" to delay it, the case dragged on for five years, said Thomas Vinje, a lawyer for Clifford Chance and spokesman for the organization. The group now needs to change the behavior in other areas, such as connected TVs.

"This punishment even hurts Google," said Achim Wambach, chairman of the Monopoly Commission, Handelsblatt. He praised the "Vestager crackdown on bundling Android products." Antitrust proceedings thus contribute to "creating an organization system in the Internet world"

The Federal Association of German Newspaper Publishers (BDZV) and the Association of German Magazine Publishers (VDZ ) consider non-discriminatory access to platforms such as Android for fair competition. essential. "With this decision, the European Commission continues to establish leading borders in Europe," the badociations said. The BDZV is one of the plaintiffs in Brussels.

Google's competitive behavior has long been noticed – even in Silicon Valley. There was a time in the first decade of the new century when Google and Jeremy Stoppelman were partners. In 2005, the founder of Yelp accepted a collaboration. The restaurant and business reference portal has allowed the search engine operator to access his reviews. In return, Google should increase the popularity of the service. Today, the 40-year-old founder calls the decision "naive".

The Internet giant has long outpaced the San Francisco portal. On Wall Street, Yelp has a market capitalization of 3.3 billion – a fraction of Alphabet, which is valued at 786.7 billion dollars. Google has long been self-badessments for the pub, the nail salon or the pediatrician.

According to Stoppelman, Google deliberately worsened the situation of competitors during searches. Google, however, refers to the objectivity of their own algorithms. For almost ten years, Stoppelman has been fighting against Google. Yelp has withdrawn from the European market in 2016 after investing millions in it. More than 170 employees had to leave.

Stoppelman hopes that the current decision of the European Commission will benefit his company: "The sanction can undoubtedly have a real effect on the competitors.Not only it has the potential to change something in Europe, but also everywhere in the world. the world. "He does not want to accept the accusation that he defends only his own business interests by fighting Google:" Competitive relationships are not fair, customers have no choice. "[19659004] Formerly Microsoft, today's Google

Carr & Ferrell's lawyer, Gary Reback, of Menlo Park, continued Microsoft's competition in the 1990s. He convinced the Department of Justice United States to sue the software giant.The allegation: Microsoft is abusing its monopoly position with the Windows operating system to prefer its own Internet Explorer browser and the conc Netscape urrent of the market to push it. The US Department of Justice has criticized Microsoft for giving PC makers more freedom to install competing software

The media called Reback "Bill Gates's worst nightmare" at the time. Today, his opponent is called Google. The competition lawyer is disappointed by the actions of the European Commissioner. "Until now, billions of Brussels' fines have not corrected Google's behavior a bit," he says. In 2015, Reback filed a lawsuit against the US company to the European Commission for the disconnection of the US start-up after the application was banned from the Play Store.

Disconnect shows users the data that the smartphone records about them. Reback accuses Google of pushing small businesses out of the market with its market power. Criticism that EU companies are hoping for undue competitive help, rejects Reback. "All prosecutors want the EU to enforce the law."

The stifling nature of the Authority gave Google enough time to neutralize its competitors, says Reback. Google has been able to eliminate all its competitors in a few years, given the network effects that make monopolies in the digital economy faster and more difficult. "If Google is forced to stop its anti-competitive behavior nearly eight years later, it's way too late," says Reback. "The European Commission must act immediately if it recognizes illegal behavior."

"Google has this phrase: the competition is just a click away, but Google has no competitor," says Jonathan Taplin, director emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab of the University of Southern California and author of the book "Move Fast and Break Things." According to the Statcounter web badytics company, more than 90 percent of search queries are broadcast worldwide via the Google platform.

Competitors' market shares, such as Microsoft Bing (3.2%) or Yahoo (2%), are minimal.Applications pre-installed on the smartphone would be used much more often.Once a feature search is available, it is unlikely that the user will download another application, argues Taplin.

According to the former antitrust lawyer and Internet entrepreneur, the authorities could have prevented Google from taking advantage of it. extent if they had stopped the many The company's acquisitions since the IPO of 2004. In 2006, the company bought YouTube, the 2013 Israeli start-up Waze.

"Google already had the best card technology and we allowed them to buy the company they could have competed for," says Taplin. He sees a new "era of regulation" coming to Silicon Valley companies. "I think we'll see more competitive decisions against Google from Europe."

Because unlike Canada and the United States, the European Commission does something. And probably wonders secretly why that's so.