Quote:
Originally Posted by Billi
I think the background for these actions is not so much an economical but a political one - the actions of your NSA as hinted in this quote from the Reuters article that fjtorres linked to in post 11
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Exactly.
This isn't even new.
Politicians on that side of the pond are always on the lookout for ways to tilt the market towards their friends in local industry. Every country does it to one extent or another (most commonly through subtle and not so subtle currency manipulations and tariffs) but the Brusselcrats gave up on subtlety ages ago and American companies have been thrir preferred targets fir decades now.
GE, Lockheed, Boeing, Monsanto, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Adobe, and now Google. You're really nobody on the global scale if you're not targeted or vilified in Brussels at one time or another. Sometimes both.
Their main problem is treaties forbid crafting laws targeting one specific foreign company which is why the French denied the "Amazon law" was targeted at Amazon (riiiight!) and why the draft resolution doesn't mention Google by name. The real problem is they're likely to end up with an overbroad regulation or law that'll wreck havoc all over. Kinda like the "right to be forgotten" thing which is only starting to play out.
Next target: Tesla.
I give it six years, maximum, before the whining begins over the GigaFactory and Tesla's market power.