Europe Misfires on Google
A big regulatory penalty will solve no problems and create plenty of harm.
Too much, too late.
Photographer: John Thys/AFP/Getty Images
In a long-awaited decision, the European Commission on Wednesday fined Alphabet Inc.'s Google a record 4.3 billion euros ($5 billion) for unfair business practices. The commission won some praise for standing up to big tech. But theatrics aside, this decision is misguided, harmful to consumers, and almost entirely beside the point.
Start with the alleged offenses. Google licenses its Android software to phone-makers for free. If they want to offer its app store, called Google Play, they must also install a suite of the company's other products, such as its search engine and web browser. All told, this is a pretty popular trade-off: Android is now used in about 80 percent of the world's smartphones.