EU's "Competition Commissioner" Rejects Google Offer to Settle Anti-Trust Dispute
Meanwhile Google fined $1.2 million for privacy law violations in Spain
The European Union started dogging Microsoft over antitrust concerns in 1993, the same year the EU was officially established, finally settling the case in 2003 before coming back to Microsoft's well with more anti-trust concerns a few years later.
Microsoft is hardly anyone's idea of an IT monopoly. Instead, the EU and its "competition commissioner" have set their sights on Google.
From Reuters:
Google's revised proposals to settle an antitrust case are not acceptable, European Union competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia said on Friday.
"The latest offer as submitted by Google in October … the latest proposals are not acceptable in the sense that they are not proposals that can eliminate our concerns regarding competition," Almunia said in a Spanish radio interview, according to a partial transcript provided by the European Commission.
Free market forces best ensure competition, while government officials tasked with ensuring "competition" usually do anything but, being best in distorting those very forces.
In Spain, meanwhile, Google was fined $1.2 million for violating privacy laws.
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