Google bends the knee.
I know the bet here is settling will cost them less than if they lose at trial, but it still feels like paying an extortioner.
That’s not the bet. It’s a frivolous lawsuit with no chance at succeeding.
They’re either betting that defending it would cost more than $25M, that a bribe will bring them favor, or, more likely, accepting that the cost of doing business in Mein Dönald’s America is to periodically pay large baseless “fines” at the whim of a dementia patient.
Because that’s exactly what it is. Appeasement… Maybe it’ll work this time.
It seems less about legal costs and more about siding with the head asshole of the US. The legal expert in the article mentions that all three of the recent lawsuits had no legal merit and likely would have gone nowhere.
My guess is that they’re paying up front now to hopefully get away with something else later.
A lot of what we are seeing is similar to the inauguration fund every company pays into for every POTUS. Bend the knee, get more money from the feds. Google is seeing their customer/consumer base fading away (I wonder why) so Gov contracts are sometimes guaranteed revenue and they can jack up the prices because taxpayers really have no say in any of it.
You could also say they paid the settlement to avoid any risk of creating a precedence that can be used in future court cases.
See, I woke up today thinking, “there’s no reason to hate Google more than I already do”
“YouTube opens bribes politician who is openly extorting them.”
We need to follow Brazil’s lead and imprison fascists, not reward them for insurrection.
Idk who you’d ask to arrest someone.
I don’t think paying someone who is extorting you is considered a bribe. It’s either one or the other
This settlement might help because Trump has directed one $22 million payment YouTube will make to the body overseeing his pet project – construction of a ballroom at the White House. Another $2.5 million payment will go to plaintiffs who joined the case and also felt YouTube infringed their rights.
A true man of the people, a couple scraps for however many may have felt their ‘rights’ to spout their conspiracies in YouTube where infringed, and 10X that for a fancy room for rich people to party in and plan how to become richer.
