“The European parliament is poised to call for a break-up of Google” in a vote next week, the Financial Times reported today. The resolution would be nonbinding, because any final action would have to be taken by the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union.
“A draft motion seen by the Financial Times says that ‘unbundling [of] search engines from other commercial services’ should be considered as a potential solution to Google’s dominance,” the paper wrote. “It has the backing of the parliament’s two main political blocs, the European People’s Party and the Socialists.”
While the parliament itself “has no formal power to split up companies,” it does have “increasing influence on the [European] Commission, which initiates all EU legislation,” the report said. “The commission has been investigating concerns over Google’s dominance of online search for five years, with critics arguing that the company’s rankings favor its own services, hitting its rivals’ profits.”
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