Mark Patterson was quoted in a CNN article about the European Union imposing a $5 billion fine on Google.
The €4.34 billion ($5 billion) penalty announced Wednesday by the European Commission is the latest salvo in an extended battle between Google and regulators in Brussels, who have subjected the tech company to three antitrust investigations.
The fine may be a record, but it’s one that Google (GOOGL) can absorb without too much pain. And the penalty won’t cause Europeans to fall out of love with Google’s popular Android operating system or its ubiquitous smartphone apps.
…
Mark Patterson, an antitrust expert and law professor at Fordham University, said the biggest win for Google was that the Commission did not order it to share the user data that forms the backbone of its business.
“Those data are the real basis of the success of its business … it is far from clear that this decision could allow even a firm with the resources of Amazon, which has its own but different data, to become an effective competitor for Google.”