Like it or not, idiots or not, they do have such business, simply because your poor little "american company" is no such thing. It's an international corporation that was once founded in america, but now does business all over the world, including within the EU and actually quite a lot of it.

If you think the barrier to entry in the search market is low, you should have a talk with Yahoo or MS, both of which have spent a billion or three on what you call "almost nothing". Either they're all idiots, or you're missing something.

But actually a good thing. Of course you'll deny that if you drank too much of the neo-conservative cool-aid, but to any thinking person it's quite clear that the total dominance of a few global superplayers is not beneficial to the market or the people.

I'll be frank, I despise my government here in Germany and if they all vanished tomorrow and were replaced by monkeys giving random orders, we'd probably be better off. But in a few things, they somehow manage to do the right thing, despite their total lack of competence.

They do. The anti-trust part of the EU is actually one of the few that's working pretty good. And before the usual stupid comments come running: They go against EU companies as much as against USA companies.

This stupid nonsense is posted every time the EU acts in relation to american companies.

It's among the worst nationalistic hogwash misconceptions ever, easily on par with North Korea rambling about its moon base.

The EU is bigger than the USA in almost every metric, especially on the important ones: Population count (507 mio. vs. 319 mio.) and GDP (18.4 trio. US$ vs. 16.8 trio. US$).

Any big american company deciding to withdraw from Europe would have its board of directors kicked out faster than they can sign the paperwork to make it happen, or watch its stock crash & burn, because they've just not only moved out of its biggest market, they've also given a free playing ground for a global competitor to emerge unchallenged.

You assume a lot about people you've never met. Good thing you're posting AC, you would bring shame to your name if you didn't.

Oh, please. You think the powers behind the curtain care one bit about the election results? Real corruption ignores the elections and goes to the institutions. Look at your government. Yeah, you elect the senators and presidents, but the guys who sit in the ministry of whatever for 20 years working on the laws, implementing the guidelines, writing the decision papers - you forget about them, never heard of them, and yet if you trace their personal histories vs. policy changes, you'll be astonished. Fortunately, a few journalists have done the job for you.