Massive fines discourage monopolistic behavior, if nothing else.
The problem is businesses may take it as a signal that the EU is against foreign businesses rather than against monopolistic practices, in which case the thing being deterred is doing business in the EU rather than monopolistic practices. To show otherwise they would have to levy equally large fines against local businesses engaged in the same sort of practices, which they haven't and likely won't.
If they really wanted to signal discouragement of monopolistic behavior rather than a cash grab they would be ordering specific conduct rather than excessive fines. For example, if the issue is that they promoted Google Chrome in an unacceptable way, prohibit them from distributing Google Chrome in the EU for five years. And then do the same thing to Microsoft just to be even-handed, because they're still bundling their browser with Windows. And likewise with Apple and Safari.
Let everyone use Firefox for five years and see how much browser bundling happens after that.
And if that actually restores competition then you don't need a five billion dollar fine.
You do understand that doing that would probably cost those companies (and everyone else) a lot more?
We only want a level playing field. Giving companies a real fine is just a way to make sure the board and the shareholders actually gets the message ;-)
It's punishment. If somebody wants it then somebody has a perverse incentive.
> You do understand that doing that would probably cost those companies (and everyone else) a lot more?
Exactly. You actually punish them, in the way directly contrary the the goal they were trying to achieve with their bad behavior, without suspiciously enriching yourselves in a way that calls your true motives into question.
> We only want a level playing field. Giving companies a real fine is just a way to make sure the board and the shareholders actually gets the message ;-)
But what message are they getting?
It's not as if there is a clear roadmap for how to avoid this sort of thing. Antitrust laws are super vague and prohibit a wide variety of common business practices, to make it effective to use them against powerful nefarious entities with many lawyers. The theory is that the government will only use them against bad actors. But if the government considers you a bad actor just because you're a foreign company, what are you supposed to do then?
