, Columnist
Google Escapes Microsoft Levels of Antitrust Pain
Look at the remedies rather than the headline fine.
Photographer: Chris Goodney/Bloomberg
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Wednesday’s European Commission ruling is not good news for Alphabet Inc.’s Google. But even though the headline number looks bad, the punishment is nowhere near as severe as the one regulators inflicted on Microsoft Inc. nine years ago.
Google will have to pay a 4.3 billion-euro ($5 billion) fine — chunky, but easily affordable for the search giant, which has cash reserves of $103 billion. It will also have to stop forcing smartphone makers to install the Google search app and Chrome web browser if they want use the Play Store, its shopfront for other developers’ apps.