<story><title>Google loses EU appeal and is fined a record $4B</title><url>https://www.axios.com/2022/09/14/google-loses-appeal-eu-antitrust-ruling</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Normille</author><text>Cool. The EU does have its [many!] faults. But they have a pretty good track record when it comes to consumer rights and consumer choice. Next up I&amp;#x27;d like to see them do the same for the plethora of incompatible cordless power-tool systems out there as they did with insisting all mobile phones standardise on a USB connector.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>woeh</author><text>I was pleased to see recently that a couple of different brands at my local DIY store had interoperable batteries. I bought a small lawnmower which now uses the same battery as a cordless drill from another brand. The brands that joined are listed on their marketing site[0].&lt;p&gt;Edit: One of the companies has a slightly less obnoxious website which also lists brands[1]&lt;p&gt;[0]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.powerforall-alliance.com&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;#technology&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.powerforall-alliance.com&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;#technology&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.gardena.com&amp;#x2F;int&amp;#x2F;products&amp;#x2F;powerforall&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.gardena.com&amp;#x2F;int&amp;#x2F;products&amp;#x2F;powerforall&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Google loses EU appeal and is fined a record $4B</title><url>https://www.axios.com/2022/09/14/google-loses-appeal-eu-antitrust-ruling</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Normille</author><text>Cool. The EU does have its [many!] faults. But they have a pretty good track record when it comes to consumer rights and consumer choice. Next up I&amp;#x27;d like to see them do the same for the plethora of incompatible cordless power-tool systems out there as they did with insisting all mobile phones standardise on a USB connector.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fatboy</author><text>I think that&amp;#x27;s a bit trickier. If Makita or whoever was forced to change their batteries, anyone with a big catalogue of their tools would be pretty miffed.&lt;p&gt;Also, I&amp;#x27;ve mentioned this on hn before, there is already the Cordless Alliance, which does exactly this.&lt;p&gt;Sadly, there&amp;#x27;s only a couple of useful-in-a-mainstream-sense brands in there: Mafell and Metabo. The rest are very niche.</text></comment>