Google's Loss in Europe Isn't Europe's Win

An inadequate understanding of European Union politics and a certain amount of tone-deafness have left Google with a really big mess. As Brad Stone and Vernon Silver write in the latest Bloomberg BusinessWeek cover story, Google cut an antitrust deal with a Spanish politician, former EU Commissioner for Competition Joaquin Almunia, only to see it scrapped in the face of fierce opposition from a German politician (European Commissioner Guenther Oettinger) and a German publisher (Matthias Doepfner, chief executive officer of Axel Springer). Then Almunia’s successor, former Danish Finance Minister Margrethe Vestager, accused the company of using its dominant position in search “to create advantage in related markets.” And that’s not all:

So, yeah, bummer for Google, which along with Apple, Facebook and Amazon.com (what some people refer to as GAFA) has become a target of European politicians concerned about privacy and resentful of U.S. Internet imperialism. I have this pet theory that cleverly avoiding European taxes has earned GAFA a lot of enemies too. And European politics are complicated -- cut a deal with a Spaniard and the Germans and the Dane won’t necessarily buy into it.