Swedish court says Google is to pay $1.5B to Klarna in antitrust damages

ggiuliomagnifico about 3 hours ago 44 commentsRead Article on reuters.com

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Discussion (44 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

zelias•24 minutes ago

Wondering if Google can take out a BNPL plan to cover the damages

Hikikomori•about 1 hour ago

This comes years after this fine was upheld about Google shopping in an EU court. I guess prisjakt (another Swedish website that works just like pricerunner) could do the same now.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/27/google-brac...

Klarna bought pricerunner for just under a billion 5 years ago, pretty good deal.

buggeryorkshire•about 1 hour ago

Didn't Google have a previous lawsuit against foundem? Not a fan of Google but foundem were fucking awful.

LtWorf•about 1 hour ago

Not like klarna are nice

Freak_NL•7 minutes ago

Quite. At least Google delivers some value to society, despite being mostly evil. Klarna is exclusively parasitic, getting people needlessly into debt and pushing a buy now pay later mentality for luxury products.

raychis•about 2 hours ago

$1.5B is significant, but the bigger question is whether this actually changes how dominant platforms rank their own services.

Is this real accountability for anti-competitive behaviour, or just another cost of doing business for Big Tech?

My cynicism is tell me that unfortunately it is the latter.

thisislife2•7 minutes ago

They do treat it as a "cost of doing business" as they do hedge between making a bigger profit through such violations vis the possible fine. But enforced fines like these serve as a warning that the government / regulator / judiciary are serious about enforcing laws and upholding rights. That precedent does discourages such actions because they know future violations will invite similar actions (the punitive fines may be worse for repeat violations) thus making the risks higher. The counter to that is political lobbying, if it is cheaper than the fines, and is also treated as another "cost of doing business".

(Even India has fined them 100s of millions of dollars - https://ssrana.in/articles/google-fined-anti-competitive-pra... ).

brainwad•about 1 hour ago

IMO the fines do have an effect - Google now withholds a lot of launches from the EU, sometimes temporarily until they have time to have lawyers check them against DMA requirements, but mostly permanently. Ironically the part of Google most likely to persist in launching for the EU is Ads, since money is at stake. All the free, consumer-benefiting services are most likely to be curtailed in the face of aggressive regulation.

cryptonym•about 1 hour ago

> All the free, consumer-benefiting services

If they stop providing value to users, they are putting their ad business at risk. It's never free, providing value to share holders is a top priority.

teddyh•about 1 hour ago

You say that like it’s a bad thing.

KptMarchewa•16 minutes ago

If something like Facebook never launched here, we'd be so, so, so much better off as a society.

vrganj•about 1 hour ago

All of the free services are just part of the ad sales funnel. Never forget, the consumer never benefits, they are only the cattle to be fattened up.

Them not launching in Europe gives the local market a chance to build up its own players. China was very successful in this thanks to the Great Firewall.

WarmWash•14 minutes ago

The consumer, who have never paid google a cent despite using their services daily for the last 20 years, likley spending a solid portion of their waking life on one of google's platforms, has never benefited?

And you think local players are going to look at users with this comically detached worldview and be like "Yeah, we want to build services for that group of people to use"?

surgical_fire•about 1 hour ago

> All the free, consumer-benefiting services

Those are just more avenues for Google to collect data to shove ads down everyone's throats.

Good that regulations keeps Google from releasing more pf their shit here. Governments should really tighten the screws there.

soco•about 1 hour ago

Yay for European sovereign services! A bit through the backdoor, or as a side-effect if you want, but the result is the same. Or could be the same, if it continues like that.

bevekspldnw•about 1 hour ago

Absolute numbers with BigTech are never significant. Only viable paths for remedy anre outright divestment or revoking financial license in Sweden.

The former is nigh impossible, the latter is fairly trivial with sufficient will.

DANmode•about 2 hours ago

Vouched, I feel similarly.

(I can’t possibly understand this being downvoted.

The downvote button isn’t an “I disagree” button.)

orphea•21 minutes ago

Perhaps because the comment didn't add to the discussion? like all those +1 comments in GitHub issues.

_el1s7•about 2 hours ago

> PriceRunner is considered to have suffered damage as a result of Google having illegally favoured its price comparison service for many years

Why would Google NOT favor it's own service at it's own product? How is that illegal?

malfist•about 1 hour ago

When you're a permitted monopoly you have the behave differently, including being fair to competitors.

1.5B is preferable to being broken up (not that Sweden could enforce that)

rkachowski•42 minutes ago

Because this kind of behavior was rampant in the past - where one company owned everything and could leverage it's size and influence to crush competition across distinct market spaces. It prevented other companies from operating in the same space, which led to stagnation, outrageous human exploitation, inequality, and ultimately the great depression.

It is now illegal as laws have been introduced with the aim to prevent this from happening again. The effectiveness of these laws, with regards to how well they fit the current era, is a different matter.

pdpi•about 1 hour ago

The thing that is illegal is leveraging a monopoly position in one market to give yourself an advantage in another market.

So Google is allowed to favour their own price comparison in, say, Hangouts, but not in Search.

bevekspldnw•about 1 hour ago

Why would Swedish courts NOT favor their own national economic interests? How is that illegal?

carlosjobim•about 1 hour ago

Well if the Swedish courts stomp on Google in the name of national interest, maybe the US will stomp on Sweden in the name of national interest. Now consider where Klarna gets the most of their money from.

piva00•about 1 hour ago

So no country can ever take action and enforce their local laws because the USA can retaliate?

Why have local laws in that case? Better we all just adopt American laws to not have to fear the Americans getting pissy when they diverge...

embedding-shape•36 minutes ago

> Now consider where Klarna gets the most of their money from.

Considering Klarna essentially boils down to a lending service for people who want to buy stuff they aren't able to afford in the moment, I don't think this is the dunk you think it is.

vitally3643•38 minutes ago

The US literally just lost the war in Iran. I don't think they're actually capable of "stomping" on anyone.

UqWBcuFx6NV4r•about 1 hour ago

Have you been sleeping under a rock for 30+ years, don’t know what antitrust is, and still feel confident enough to shout about it in a comment?

The law isn’t just “what you happen to intuitively think is right”, especially in a jurisdiction where you clearly do not reside.

dboreham•about 1 hour ago

The Big Lebowski school of law.

vrganj•about 1 hour ago

It is illegal to use your monopoly in one area to unfairly distort the market in another. This is one of the core concepts of antitrust law.

namdnay•about 1 hour ago

"Why would Microsoft NOT favor it's own browser in it's own OS? How is that illegal?"

spunker540•about 1 hour ago

Last I checked they still do exactly that. Not sure why that case is used as an example when literally every OS bundles a preferred browser

IsTom•about 1 hour ago

Have you checked in EU?

iLoveOncall•about 1 hour ago

You may not like it but I agree it shouldn't be illegal. If competitors aren't happy they can make their own OS.

At this point can you make a custom task manager and sue Microsoft to propose users to install your task manager on first boot? What about background image providers, why doesn't Microsoft propose to install background images from them at first boot?

It's an absolutely ridiculous idea.

They should not block alternatives, but having to promote them is complete nonsense.

Hikikomori•about 1 hour ago

something something monopoly. Even US has laws about this, currently not enforced though.

al_borland•about 1 hour ago

Sure, but if I’m understanding this (maybe I’m not), a company could make a service competitive to an Alphabet product, then sue them for not using it?

For instance, if a company started up an ad business, are they going to sue and win, because Google uses their own ad service in Search instead of this new competitor?

That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

JAlexoid•about 1 hour ago

You're not understanding this.

A company can create a new search engine and Google Search isn't obligated to even mention it.

The issue is when achieving market dominance and new service is integrated into the dominant product.

You clearly haven't been around long enough to have caught a lot of discussions on this topic over a decade ago.

newaccount670•15 minutes ago

This is effectively just a tariff. An extremely large and disproportionate fine on a foreign company so that the local company has a better chance to compete.