It can call for anything it wants, and it can ask, but to think it hold any legal hold over Google is just crazy. How can this organisation have any jurisdiction outside of its territory! It cannot, imho.

How can this come to anything close to a conclusion unless G/Bing/Yahoo and any other search engines with significant traffic say "OK, forget France" and block all French traffic to all G/Bing/Yahoo sites.

That would also send a message to other EU countries.

Is there a French or EU SE that could take G/Bing?Yahoo's place?

[added] I suppose the se's could pick any EU country for this action, but since France has stepped up to the plate I guess they are volunteering[/added]

As I have posted before..I think that ..
1) THE CNIL ( and especially their friends who are worried about what embarrassing things they have done / do / will do ..this is a very corrupt country after all ) really hope that Google will just block all French IPs from accessing anything other than Google.fr..already all android devices sold in France cannot reach Google.com without going through a VPS..

This will keep many of their financial and scandals and those of their friends and fellow "Enarques" ..out of easy access by the French people who have paid for it all ( the salaries and "expenses" of politicians and high civil servants ) with their taxes..

The mainstream French media, especially the TV do not report on the French equivalents of "moats" and "duck houses" at all..

or

2) The current French government ( who are extremely friendly with the current members of the CNIL, many of whom, like the current French Government are ex ENA ) are desperate for money, our deficit is huge, and the current Government is spending ever greater amounts of money that they do not have in order to try to buy votes for Francois Hollande when he presents himself for re-election in 2017...

Google has a lot of money..Fining them..would get Francois Hollande's government a lot of money..

and ..attacking U.S.A based or for that matter any large non French business always plays well with the French electorate..

Cynic..moi ?

I suspect that G may remind some here quietly of their search history being easily grepped, and it may all die down after much rhetoric..

Cynic..Moi ?

IMO stupid decision..next up North Korea will demand all references to what KJI doesn't want reported to be removed..worldwide..even the PRC never tried to pull this l kind of thing with Google.

I can think of a few more... China, Russia, and maybe even Syria.

Is there a French or EU SE that could take G/Bing?Yahoo's place?

Well, someone must use Exalead, or the Exabot wouldn't crawl so much.

It is oddly satisfying for me to see Google have an appeal rejected. I hope the rejection makes no sense to Google, and they get no feedback on why they were rejected and have no chance for further appeal. Or, even better, they are allowed 1,000 characters to issue further appeals, but those appeals are summarily ignored.

:)

Only in France. It's too bad more people aren't tech savvy enough to see how backwards the French government is when it comes to modern tech... Maybe the rest of the world can't stop France from hurting their economic future, but we should at least be able to turn it into a meme and laugh about it.