> google has a monopoly on search so this is a reasonable assumption.
it does not, especially not in european law.
a monopoly is defined in the eu as the only possible provider. but the eu comission see's them as a quasi-monopoly, which uses their market strength to weaken other market participants
I don't think you understand how EU law works. There are multiple interpretations and the courts decide which one is "right.
I recently worked on a project concerning the fee you employer pays you if you have to use your own car for a meeting, and the taxation involved. 8 different cities wanted a digitized solution, the law text involved is around 10 lines of easily understandable text.
Wanna guess how many ways the law was interpreted? 9.
9 because in one city the city council decided to go with their own interpretation rather than what their own legal department advices.
first of all, I wanted to correct that the eu never said that google is a monopoly. second I actually said something wrong.
basically there is no "european law" (https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-making-process/overview-la...).
Basically they create directives, regulations and make decisions. The countries than need to comply them as a law.
However if any nation does not comply they will get "punished", but most of the time the punishment is a joke, so that's basically the biggest problem of the eu and that's what happend in your case.
Btw. what I basically meant with my text had nothing to do with the above. It's just that the Monopoly word under law means that Google would be the only market participant, which of course is wrong and the EU never said "monopoly", they only said Google has market dominance, however most news outlets written monopoly, which in fact is wrong.
Btw here is the official text: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-17-1785_en.htm
You can even look up what different news outlets written about google, they claimed google as a monopoly, which is nowhere stated by the press information.
That's not quite right. Directives, regulations and decisions are different. Regulations are instantly law in all EU countries. This is because all EU countries have laws that say all Regulations apply directly. This is makes regulations effectively EU law.
Directives are instructions to EU countries to achieve a certain aim but leaves it up to the countries to decide how. Countries will then write their own laws.
Decisions are more executive actions and are binding to whoever it addresses.
well of course they are different. However making them "effectively EU law" and they are EU law is different. Countries need to comply, but some don't comply.. See my linked article.
If a country does not comply they get financial penalties. this also happens a lot, especially since some countries take too long to comply.
But that's not an issue specific to the EU. Countries pass laws that they don't obey all the time. Usually the only recourse is to try and get the courts to order the government to comply but depending on the country that might or might not work. At least with the EU there are external fines to encourage compliance.
basically a lot of people believe the written word of some news outlets. however the semantic is totally wrong and people started to think that there is no competitor to google, besides the fact that this is not true.
it does not, especially not in european law. a monopoly is defined in the eu as the only possible provider. but the eu comission see's them as a quasi-monopoly, which uses their market strength to weaken other market participants