Quote (Knoppie @ 19 Sep 2018 13:56)
Apple paid, ~€15 bn, Google recently paid €20bn (a record high) for unfair advertisement priority. It was the second time they've been fined and it doesn't seem to be the last time, as Google continues the practice. I guess the profits are higher than the fine ;)
The internet explorer lawsuit was ~ 15 years ago, just to show that the EU has been fighting unfair competition and monopolies for quite some time now.
The corporate puppets you mention, are in the local governments. Racing down the corporate tax to the bottom, at the costs of small businesses and citizens. Not just here, but more or less worldwide, large corporations are getting an increasing share in the world economy and are dwarfing economies like Ireland.
I don't really want to go into your racist attack on African citizens. But I'll remind you that Starbucks in doing the same type of evasion within the EU as Heineken does in Africa. Minimizing profits in countries through international constructions, is something we need to get a better grip on, but that cannot be done on a national level.
The statement that the EU is run by corporate puppets, seems to be backward fart wing logic. Almost seems like we do need to ban memes.
you got sources for the 20 billion? in german sources its a 4,3 billion fine that google has to pay and another 2,4 billion from 2017
thats 5% (the 4,3 bn, the other fine is 3% of their 2016 revenue) of their 2017 revenue and the EU commission can go up to 10%, that would mean 20 billion arent even possible according to what i can find
obviously google is appealing against that and the whole thing will go to court, which will take years
so in other words, google has not paid shit, you make it sound like europe has collected the money already
unfortunately this is not correct
in 2012 intel was sentenced to pay 1,06 billion and the sentence was overturned in 2016
so much for that
europe isnt getting a penny for years to come (if at all)
aside from that its more like small and middle class corporation are suffering from very high taxes, at least in places like germany or france, while the global players avoid them with cheap tricks
we need lower taxes that are actually enforced (that might even get big corporations to stop evasion) and thats where the job of the national state begins
enforce taxation, where products are getting sold and stop the flow of profit to some oversea tax haven or they are getting banned
dont expect anything from the EU in that regard and i oppose the centralisation, that you seem to be so fond of
the EU just wants to have all that money go to brussels, i say it belongs where the profit is made
locals are not to blame, they are the victims of eu lobbyism not to mention that we are only talking about corporations from outside of europe
the EU is doing a terrific job at keeping food prices artificially high for their corporate masters here in europe with tariffs and regulations, to name one example
its completely impossible nowadays to talk about the failed and backward states/societies in africa without some ridiculous racism accusation
you just need to pay off the corrupt government, warlord, whatever in that area and you can do business there
the whole system and understanding that we have does not even exist
p.s: not everything you dont agree with is fart right or racist you know, just for your information
source
https://www.zdnet.de/88337889/eu-verhaengt-strafe-gegen-google-in-hoehe-von-434-milliarden-euro/translation if you want:
https://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zdnet.de%2F88337889%2Feu-verhaengt-strafe-gegen-google-in-hoehe-von-434-milliarden-euro%2F