Here's a bit of antitrust trivia for you. How long does it take for Europe’s antitrust enforcers to punish a company once they’ve pointed out its misbehavior? The answer: about a year.
When the European Commission officially complained about Apple’s streaming rules in February 2023, it followed that up with a €1.8 billion ($2 billion) fine in March 2024.
Why such slow responses? Perhaps because the commission’s complaint had an eye-catching threat: "structural remedies,” a.k.a. a possible breakup of Google. It would be politically foolhardy for Europe to act alone in pushing to split up one of the biggest companies to come out of the U.S. Consider the number of times Donald Trump has accused European regulators of hating on America. Even Barack Obama has thrown shade at the continent’s trust busters for being anti-American. This would just amp up the rhetoric.
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