Sunday, April 19, 2015

The contradictions of Margrethe Vestager

A quick post here. Margrethe Vestager, in charge of EU's competition commission, has gone on a public dog and pony show to make her case in support of her antitrust allegations against Google.

On PBS News Hour, Gwen Ifill asked Vestager, why, if other companies are favoring their own services over others, does Google have to stop? Vestager responded that the issue hinged on the fact that Google held a 90% market share in the EU.

Four questions later, Vestager admitted openly that this market dominance was driven by consumer choice, as she tried to explain that a company must not abuse its dominance.

In essence, Vestager has created the contorted logic that a company may do whatever it wants to, until it becomes a dominant player by the actions of consumers exercising their free will. At that point, the same actions once deemed acceptable, is now looked upon as abuse.

Unless the EU is deeply corrupted by nationalistic demagoguery -- which many argue, exists -- there is no way Vestager prevails with such weak sauce.

This war on American companies has to stop, or else we'll end up with a serious trade war, to which end, the winners will be China and Russia.

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