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A $5.1 billion penalty won’t stop the next antitrust war

The European Commission hit Google with a record antitrust fine yesterday for its deals with smartphone makers to give pride of place to its own apps, such as the Chrome browser, in its Android operating system. The E.U. also ordered Google to change several practices. The goal: more competition on smartphones.

But as the WSJ argues, it may already be too late for that. As this case plays out — the appeals could last years — smartphone apps will lose ground to voice assistants, virtual reality and the like. Which will have their own antitrust issues.

The E.U. might hope to make Google tread more carefully during the next tech wave, as Microsoft did on mobile after being punished for how it pushed its internet browser. But companies seem to do pretty well after huge antitrust fines. Why would Google ease up?