Google and the EU: A Couple That Do Not Get Along
July 11, 2025
Google’s EU legal woes are in the news again. The Mercury News shares the Bloomberg piece, “Google Suffers Setback in Fight Over EU’s 4.1 Billion Euros Fine.” An advisor to the EU’s Court of Justice, Advocate General Juliane Kokott, agrees with regulators’ choice to punish google for abusing Android’s market power and discredits the company’s legal arguments. She emphasized:
“Google held a dominant position in several markets of the Android ecosystem and thus benefited from network effects that enabled it to ensure that users used Google Search. As a result, Google obtained access to data that enabled it in turn to improve its service.”
Though Kokott’s opinion is not binding, the court is known to rely heavily on its adviser’s opinions in final rulings. For its part, Google insists any market advantage it has is solely “due to innovation.” Sure, rigging the Search environment in its favor was plenty innovative. Just not legal. Not in the EU, anyway. Samuel Stolton reports:
“The top EU court’s final decision could prove pivotal for the future of the Android business model — which has provided free software in exchange for conditions imposed on mobile phone manufacturers. Such contracts provoked the ire of the commission in 2018, when the watchdog accused Alphabet Inc.’s Google of three separate types of illegal behavior that helped cement the dominance of its search engine, accompanying the order with the record fine. First, it said Google was illegally forcing handset makers to pre-install the Google Search app and the Chrome browser as a condition for licensing its Play Store — the marketplace for Android apps. Second, the EU said Google made payments to some large manufacturers and operators on condition that they exclusively pre-installed the Google Search app. Lastly, the EU said the Mountain View, California-based company prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install apps from running alternative versions of Android not approved by Google.”
Meanwhile, the company is also in hot water over the EU’s Digital Markets Act. We learn that, in March, regulators scolded the firm elevating its own services over others and actively preventing app developers from guiding users to offers outside its app store. These practices violate the act, Google was told, and continuing to do so could lead to more fines. But are fines, even $4 billion ones, enough to deter the tech giant?
Cynthia Murrell, July 11, 2025
Can AI Do What Jesus Enrique Rosas Does?
July 8, 2025
Just a dinobaby without smart software. I am sufficiently dull without help from smart software.
I learned about a YouTube video via a buried link in a story in my newsfeed. The video is titled “Analysis of Jeffrey Epstein’s Cell Block Video Released by the FBI.” I know little about Mr. Rosas. He is a body language “expert.” I know zero about this field. He gives away a book about body language, and I assume that he gets inquiries and sells services. He appears to have developed what he calls a Knesix Code. He does not disclose his academic background.
But …
His video analysis of the Epstein surveillance camera data makes clear that Sr. Rosas has an eye for detail. Let me cite two examples:
First, he notes that in some of the footage released by the FBI, a partial image of a video editing program’s interface appears. Not only does it appear, but the image appears in several separate sectors of the FBI-released video. Mr. Rosas raises the possibility that the FBI footage (described as unaltered) was modified.
Here is an example of that video editing “tell” or partial image:
Second, Sr. Rosas spots a time gap in the FBI video. Here’s where the “glitch” appears:
How much is missing from the unedited video file? More than a minute.
Observations:
- I feed the interface image into a couple of smart software systems. None was able to identify the specific program’s interface from the partial image
- Mr. Rosas’ analysis identified two interesting anomalies in the video
- The allegedly unedited video appears to have been edited.
Net net: AI is not able to do what Sr. Rosas did. I do not want to speculate how “no videos” became this one video. I do not want to speculate why an unedited video contains two editing indications. I don’t want to think much about Jeffrey Epstein, the kiddie trafficking, and the individuals associating with him. I will stick with my observation, “AI does not seem to have the ability to do what Sr. Rosas did.”
Stephen E Arnold, July 8, 2025
Google Fireworks: No Boom, Just Ka-ching from the EU Regulators
July 7, 2025
No smart software to write this essay. This dinobaby is somewhat old fashioned.
The EU celebrates the 4th of July with a fire cracker for the Google. No bang, just ka-ching, which is the sound of the cash register ringing … again. “Exclusive: Google’s AI Overviews Hit by EU Antitrust Complaint from Independent Publishers.” The trusted news source which reminds me that it is trustworthy reports:
Alphabet’s Google has been hit by an EU antitrust complaint over its AI Overviews from a group of independent publishers, which has also asked for an interim measure to prevent allegedly irreparable harm to them, according to a document seen by Reuters. Google’s AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries that appear above traditional hyperlinks to relevant webpages and are shown to users in more than 100 countries. It began adding advertisements to AI Overviews last May.
Will the fine alter the trajectory of the Google? Answer: Does a snowball survive a fly by of the sun?
Several observations:
- Google, like Microsoft, absolutely has to make its smart software investments pay off and pay off in a big way
- The competition for AI talent makes fat, confused ducks candidates for becoming foie gras. Mr. Zuckerberg is going to buy the best ducks he can. Sports and Hollywood star compensation only works if the product pays off at the box office.
- Google’s “leadership” operates as if regulations from mere governments are annoyances, not rules to be obeyed.
- The products and services appear to be multiplying like rabbits. Confusion, not clarity, seems to be the consequence of decisions operating without a vision.
Is there an easy, quick way to make Google great again? My view is that the advertising model anchored to matching messages with queries is the problem. Ad revenue is likely to shift from many advertisers to blockbuster campaigns. Up the quotas of the sales team. However, the sales team may no longer be able to sell at a pace that copes with the cash burn for the alleged next big thing, super intelligence.
Reuters, the trusted outfit, says:
Google said numerous claims about traffic from search are often based on highly incomplete and skewed data.
Yep, highly incomplete and skewed data. The problem for Google is that we have a small tank of nasty cichlids. In case you don’t have ChatGPT at hand, a cichlid is fish that will kill and eat its children. My cichlids have names: Chatty, Pilot girl, Miss Trall, and Dee Seeka. This means that when stressed or confined our cichlids are going to become killers. What happens then?
Stephen E Arnold, July 7, 2025
Teams Today, Cloud Data Leakage Tomorrow Allegations Tomorrow?
June 27, 2025
An opinion essay written by a dinobaby who did not rely on smart software .
The creep of “efficiency” manifests in numerous ways. A simple application becomes increasingly complex. The result, in many cases, is software that loses the user in chrome trim, mud flaps, and stickers for vacation spots. The original vehicle wears a Halloween costume and can be unrecognizable to someone who does not use the software for six months and returns to find a different creature.
What’s the user reaction to this? For regular users, few care too much. For a meta-users — that is those who look at the software from a different perspective; for example, that of a bean counter — the accumulation of changes produces more training costs, more squawks about finding employees who can do the “work,” and creeping cost escalation. The fix? Cheaper or free software. “German Government Moves Closer to Ditching Microsoft: “We’re Done with Teams!” explains:
The long-running battle of Germany’s northernmost state, Schleswig-Holstein, to make a complete switch from Microsoft software to open-source alternatives looks close to an end. Many government operatives will permanently wave goodbye to the likes of Teams, Word, Excel, and Outlook in the next three months in a move to ensure independence, sustainability, and security.
The write up includes a statement that resonates with me:
Digitalization Minister Dirk Schroedter has announced that “We’re done with Teams!”
My team has experimented with most video conferencing software. I did some minor consulting to an outfit called DataBeam years and years ago. Our experience with putting a person in front of a screen and doing virtual interaction is not something that we decided to use in the lock down days. Nope. We fiddled with Sparcs and the assorted accoutrements. We tried whatever became available when one of my clients would foot the bill. I was okay with a telephone, but the future was mind-addling video conferences. Go figure.
Our experience with Teams at Arnold Information Technology is that the system balks when we use it on a Mac Mini as a user who does not pay. On a machine with a paid account, the oddities of the interface were more annoying than Zoom’s bizarre approach. I won’t comment about the other services to which we have access, but these too are not the slickest auto polishes on the Auto Zone’s shelves.
Digitalization Minister Dirk Schroedter (Germany) is quoted as saying:
The geopolitical developments of the past few months have strengthened interest in the path that we’ve taken. The war in Ukraine revealed our energy dependencies, and now we see there are also digital dependencies.
Observations are warranted:
- This anti-Microsoft stance is not new, but it has not been linked to thinking in relationship to Russia’s special action.
- Open source software may not be perfect, but it does offer an option. Microsoft “owns” software in the US government, but other countries may be unwilling to allow Microsoft to snap on the shackles of proprietary software.
- Cloud-based information is likely to become an issue with some thistles going forward.
The migration of certain data to data brokers might be waiting in the wings in a restaurant in Brussels. Someone in Germany may want to serve up that idea to other EU member nations.
Stephen E Arnold, June 27, 2025
US Science Conferences: Will They Become an Endangered Species?
June 26, 2025
Due to high federal budget cuts and fears of border issues, the United States may be experiencing a brain drain. Some smart people (aka people tech bros like to hire) are leaving the country. Leadership in some high profile outfits are saying, ““Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” Others get multi-million pay packets to remain in America.
Nature.com explains more in “Scientific Conferences Are Leaving The US Amid Border Fears.” Many scientific and academic conferences were slated to occur in the US, but they’ve since been canceled, postponed, or moved to other venues in other countries. The organizers are saying that Trump’s immigration and travel policies are discouraging foreign nerds from visiting the US. Some organizers have rescheduled conferences in Canada.
Conferences are important venues for certain types of professionals to network, exchange ideas, and learn the alleged new developments in their fields. These conferences are important to the intellectual communities. Nature says:
The trend, if it proves to be widespread, could have an effect on US scientists, as well as on cities or venues that regularly host conferences. ‘Conferences are an amazing barometer of international activity,’ says Jessica Reinisch, a historian who studies international conferences at Birkbeck University of London. ‘It’s almost like an external measure of just how engaged in the international world practitioners of science are.’ ‘What is happening now is a reverse moment,’ she adds. ‘It’s a closing down of borders, closing of spaces … a moment of deglobalization.’”
The brain drain trope and the buzzword “deglobalization” may point to a comparatively small change with longer term effects. At the last two specialist conferences I attended, I encountered zero attendees or speakers from another country. In my 60 year work career this was a first at conferences that issued a call for papers and were publicized via news releases.
Is this a loss? Not for me. I am a dinobaby. For those younger than I, my hunch is that a number of people will be learning about the truism “If ignorance is bliss, just say, ‘Hello, happy.’”
Whitney Grace, June 26, 2025
Paper Tiger Management
June 24, 2025
An opinion essay written by a dinobaby who did not rely on smart software .
I learned that Apple and Meta (formerly Facebook) found themselves on the wrong side of the law in the EU. On June 19, 2025, I learned that “the European Commission will opt not to impose immediate financial penalties” on the firms. In April 2025, the EU hit Apple with a 500 million euro fine and Meta a 200 million euro fine for non compliance with the EU’s Digital Markets Act. Here’s an interesting statement in the cited EuroNews report the “grace period ends on June 26, 2025.” Well, not any longer.
What’s the rationale?
- Time for more negotiations
- A desire to appear fair
- Paper tiger enforcement.
I am not interested in items one and two. The winner is “paper tiger enforcement.” In my opinion, we have entered an era in management, regulation, and governmental resolve when the GenX approach to lunch. “Hey, let’s have lunch.” The lunch never happens. But the mental process follows these lanes in the bowling alley of life: [a] Be positive, [b] Say something that sounds good, [c] Check the box that says, “Okay, mission accomplished. Move on. [d] Forget about the lunch thing.
When this approach is applied on large scale, high-visibility issues, what happens? In my opinion, the credibility of the legal decision and the penalty is diminished. Instead of inhibiting improper actions, those who are on the receiving end of the punishment lean one thing: It doesn’t matter what we do. The regulators don’t follow through. Therefore, let’s just keep on moving down the road.
Another example of this type of management can be found in the return to the office battles. A certain percentage of employees are just going to work from home. The management of the company doesn’t do “anything”. Therefore, management is feckless.
I think we have entered the era of paper tiger enforcement. Make noise, show teeth, growl, and then go back into the den and catch some ZZZZs.
Stephen E Arnold, June 24, 2025
Proton Move: What about the TON Foundation?
June 17, 2025
Surveillance laws are straight out of dystopian novels and they’ve become a reality. Proton mail is a popular alternative to Gmail and in response to a controversial spying bill they’re not happy says TechRadar: “"We Would Be Less Confidential Than Google" – Proton Threatens To Quit Switzerland Over New Surveillance Law."
Switzerland’s new surveillance law would require all social networks, VPNs, and messaging apps to identity and retain user data. Currently only mobile networks and ISPs are only required to do this. Proton mail provides users with VPN and encrypted email services. They’re not happy about this potential new law and they’ve threatened to leave Switzerland.
Proton’s CEO said:
“In an interview with RTS (Radio Télévision Suisse) on May 13, 2025, Proton CEO Andy Yen slammed the proposed amendment as a ‘major violation of the right to privacy’ that will also harm the country’s reputation and its ability to compete on an international level. ‘This revision attempts to implement something that has been deemed illegal in the EU and the United States. The only country in Europe with a roughly equivalent law is Russia,’ said Yen…. ‘’I think we would have no choice but to leave Switzerland,’ said Yen. ‘The law would become almost identical to the one in force today in Russia. It’s an untenable situation. We would be less confidential as a company in Switzerland than Google, based in the United States. So it’s impossible for our business model.’”
The new law would add three new types of information and two types of monitoring. Other tech companies and leaders are against the law.
Switzerland is the bastion of neutrality in Europe. In Zug, Switzerland, the TON Foundation (aka ONF and The Open Network Foundation) works to build support for Telegram’s blockchain, its Telegram-developed crypto currency, and its realigned management team. Will Swiss regulators take a more proactive approach to this interesting non-governmental organization?
Here’s a left-field idea: What if the Proton is a dry-run for some Telegram-related action?
Whitney Grace, June 17, 2025
Will the EU Use an AI Agent to Automate Fines?
June 10, 2025
Just a dinobaby and no AI: How horrible an approach?
Apple, at least to date, has not demonstrated adeptness in lashing smart software to its super secure and really user friendly system. How many times do I have to dismiss “log in to iCloud” and “log in to Facetime”? How frequently will Siri wander in dataspace? How often do I have to dismiss “two factor authentication” for the old iPad I use to read Kindle books? How often? The answer is, “As many times as the European Union will fine the company for failure to follow its rules, guidelines, laws, and special directives.
I read “EU Ruling: Apple’s App Store Still in Violation of DMA, 30 Days to Comply” and I really don’t know what Apple has blown off. I vaguely recall that the company ignored a US court order in the US. However, the EU is not the US, and the EU can make quite miserable for the company, its employees residing in the EU, and its contractors with primary offices in member countries. The tools can be trivial: A bit of friction at international airports. The machinery can be quite Byzantine when financial or certification activities can be quite entertaining to an observer.
The write up says:
Following its initial €500 million fine in April, the European Commission is now giving Apple 30 days to fully align its App Store rules with the Digital Markets Act (DMA). If it fails to comply, the EU says it will start imposing “periodic penalty payments” until Apple [follows the rules]…
For me, the operative word is “periodic.” I think it means a phenomenon that repeats at regular intervals of time. Okay, a fine like the most recent €500 would just occur in a heart beat fashion. One example would be every month. After one year, the fines total €6,000,000,000. What happens if the EU gets frisky after a bottle of French burgundy from a very good year? The fine would be levied for each day in a calendar year and amount to €2,190,000,000,000 or two trillion one hundred ninety billion euros. Even for a high flier like Apple and its pilot Tim Apple, stakeholders might suggest, “Just obey the law, please.”
I wonder if the EU might consider using Telegram bots to automate the periodic fines. The system developed by France’s favorite citizen Pavel Durov is robust, easily extensible, and essentially free. The “FineApple_bot” could fire on a schedule and message Tim Apple, his Board of Directors, the other “leadership” of Apple, and assorted news outlets. The free service operates quickly enough for most users, but by paying a nominal monthly fee, the FineApple_bot could issues 1,000 instructions a second. But that’s probably overkill unless the EU decides to fine Apple by the minute. In case you were wondering the annual fine would be in the neighborhood of €52,560,000,000,000 (or fifty-two trillion five hundred sixty billion euros).
My hunch is that despite Apple’s cavalier approach to court orders, some less intransigent professional in the core of Apple would find a way to resolve the problem. But I personally quite like the Telegram bot approach.
Stephen E Arnold, June 10, 2025
2025 Is a Triangular Number: Tim Apple May Have No Way Out
May 30, 2025
Just a dinobaby and no AI: How horrible an approach?
Macworld in my mind is associated with happy Macs, not sad Macs. I just read “Tim Cook’s Year Is Doomed and It’s Not Even June Yet.” That’s definitely a sad Mac headline and suggests that Tim Apple will morph into a well-compensated human in a little box something like this:
The write up says:
Cook’s bad, awful 2025 is pretty much on the record…
Why, pray tell? How about:
- The failure of Apple’s engineers to deliver smart software
- A donation to a certain political figure’s campaign only to be rewarded with tariffs
- Threats of an Apple “tax”
- Fancy dancing with China and pumping up manufacturing in India only to be told by a person of authority, “That’s not a good idea, Tim Apple.”
I think I have touched on the main downers. The write up concludes with:
For Apple, this may be a case of too much success being a bad thing. It is unlikely that Cook could have avoided Trump’s attention, given its inherent gravimetric field. The question is, now that a moderate show of obsequiousness has proven insufficiently mollifying, what will Cook do next?
Imagine a high flying US technology company not getting its way in the US and a couple of other countries to boot. And what about the European Union?
Several observations are warranted:
- Tim Cook should be paranoid. Lots of people are out to get Apple and he will be collateral damage.
- What happens if the iPhone craters? Will Apple TV blossom or blow?
- How many pro-Apple humans will suffer bouts of depression? My guess? Lots.
Net net: Numerologists will perceive 2025 as a year for Apple to reflect and prepare for new cycles. I just see 2025 as a triangular number with Tim Apple in its perimeter and no way out evident.
Stephen E Arnold, May 30, 2025
Information Filtering with Mango Chutney, Please
May 30, 2025
Censorship is having a moment. And not just in the US. For example, India’s The Wire laments, “Academic Censorship Has Become the Norm in Indian Universities.” Writer Apoorvanand, who teaches at Dheli University, describes his experience when a seminar he was to speak at was “postponed.” See the article for the details, like the importance and difficulty of bringing together a diverse panel. Or the college principal who informed speakers the event was off without notifying its organizer, Apoorvanand’s colleague. He writes:
“It was a breach of trust and a personal humiliation, my colleague fumed. Of course the problematic speaker would not know the story but he knew what was the real reason. He said that principals today only want one type of speaker to be invited. The non-problematic ones. Was it only about an individual? No. My friend felt that it went beyond that. There is an attempt to disallow discussion on topics which can make students think. Any seminars which would expose the students to different ways of looking at a problem and making their own decision are not permitted. For the last 10 years we see only one kind of meets being held in the colleges. They cannot be called academic and intellectual fora. They are platforms created for propaganda for the regime and one kind of ‘Indianness’ or ‘nationalism.’ If you do a survey of the topics across colleges, you would find a monotonous similarity. It is a campaign to indoctrinate young people. For it to succeed, the authorities keep other voices and ideas out of the reach of the students.”
Despite the organizer’s intent to not single out the “problematic” participant, the individual knew. Apoorvanand spoke to him and learned cancellations are now a common occurrence for him. And, he added, a growing list of his colleagues. Neither is this pattern limited to Dheli University. We learn:
“When I told [other teachers] about this, they opened up. Some of them were from ‘elite’ universities like Ashoka or Krea and Azim Premji University. There too the authorities have become very cautious. Names of the speakers have to be cleared by the authorities. There is an order in one university to share the slides the speakers would use three days before the event. The teachers are also cautioned against going to places that could upset the regime or accepting invitations from people who are considered to be its critics.”
At Indian universities both public and private, Apoorvanand writes, censorship is now the norm a bit like mango chutney.
Cynthia Murrell, May 30, 2025
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
