The European parliament is reportedly poised to call for a break-up of Google in a drastic escalation of Europe’s long-running antitrust case against the tech giant.
A draft motion seen by the Financial Times, and expected to be agreed next week, calls for the “unbundling [of] search engines from other commercial services” as a potential solution to Google’s dominance of the search market in Europe.
The European Commission has been investigating concerns that Google has abused its dominant position in search since 2010 and the dispute has become increasingly bitter. In September the EU’s incoming digital commissioner Günther Oettinger warned that any settlement with Google could “cement its strength in the market rather than diluting it”.
German, French and Spanish politicians have attacked the company over a variety of issues including revelations from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden and “right to be forgotten” legislation that allows people to delete information from search results.
Joaquín Almunia, then the EU’s competition commissioner, rejected Google’s third attempt to settle the antitrust case in September after political support for the deal collapsed. He reopened the inquiry after “very, very negative” comments from complainants.
His successor, Margrethe Vestager, has told the European Parliament she will “need some time to decide on the next steps” in the case.
Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s economy minister and vice-chancellor, suggested a break-up of the company in May but suggested regulation was a better move. “We must give serious thought to the possibility of ‘unbundling’ the internet market, in a similar way to the electricity and gas networks,” Gabriel wrote in an op-ed published in German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
The case against Google is being backed by rival Microsoft, which faced its own antitrust suits in the 1990s, German publisher Axel Springer and a host of smaller rivals that claim Google is squeezing them out of the market.
“We are afraid of Google,” Mathias Döpfner, chief executive of Axel Springer wrote in an open letter to Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman. “I must state this very clearly and frankly, because few of my colleagues dare do so publicly.” He pointed out that Google a 91.2% share of the search-engine market in Germany. He called for restrictions on the company and warned Schmidt the company could “win yourself to death”.
Oettinger has already made suggested remedies for Google’s alleged dominance including mandated changes to search results. A public call for a break-up would be the most far-reaching action proposed to date. But the European parliament lacks the authority to force a break-up of a company and any such proposal would meet stiff opposition from Google and the US.
Google was not immediately available for comment.
