The amount of the fine being bantered about is 6 billion Euros (6.4 billion dollars) .... The amount of search listing change needed to "not hurt the little guys" would require listing in the top 10 items that normally according to relevance or popularity would not even make page #2 on the existing Google system.
This is all fairly much a lot of hot air rhetoric and BS at this stage, a brand new woman is making a splash as the head of a EU function by "taking on Google".
She is intentionally going counter to documented settlements already agreed to in writing by her predecessor as formal findings.
Western Governments do not act this way, not normally. Dictatorships and similar forms of government act by fiat, not representative forms of government regulated by procedures such as the EU.
Google needs to hire some really good EU lawyers, and have a go at getting some compensation for the false accusations leveled at them so far.
Google also needs to hire some skilled EU publicists to make sure everyone knows very clearly that MS is behind all this shite. They should commission a movie on the subject showing the personal power seeking and greed that is behind the EU's function heads active manipulations of free businesses that are located in other countries.
Then, if Google chooses to exit some of the EU states they need to make sure the EU members
all understand exactly what this grandstanding by this Danish woman is going to cost them. Yes, Google is by 90+ percent the most favored search engine used by EU people in general, but losing Google from your country is SO SO MUCH MORE than just losing a search engine.
Sergi & Brin have proven that they can make hard choices not to buckle under to governmental pressures, they have done it repeatedly with the USA and with China. They did choose to completely pull out of China as it became obvious the Chinese were never going to go along with the free dispersal of data and Google wasn't going to be their censor for them. (Baidu is and does, btw)
It is interesting that Microsoft remained in China the whole time and MS plays ball with the Chinese government against the freedoms of the Chinese people (and other peoples around the world). MS actually benefited from Google leaving China -- perhaps MS is trying for a repeat of that activity?
MS cannot compete against Google right now in the free world marketplace, not effectively. Not in search, not in data nor other Google key competencies. MS struggles just to compete in OS systems right now, which is THEIR key competency supposedly ....
But if MS can arrange for the EU to screw Google up pretty good and take Google's mind off of what they were doing so very well in the last year or so then that is to MS's advantage.
Remember, Google was kicking MS's butt and creating a new way of doing computing over the net instead of locally loading everything. By building a better system Google was quietly putting MS out of business within the next 10 years or so. MS remembers the dirty tricks used by Bill Gates, so you can expect some of the same stuff from the new MS as well.
I once said
MS --- PLEASE go piss Google off again --- Google does 300% more 200% quicker when they
stop being Switzerland and actually get pissed off some at something.
Let's see what transpires now ..... I think the boys are going to go after each other's rice bowls a bit more directly now.