Earlier this week it was reported that the European Parliament was drafting a resolution which would express the idea that Google search should be unbundled from the various other businesses that Google conducts. The company was obviously not too pleased about this development and even if it didn’t respond directly, there were multiple reports that claimed executives at the company were furious about the political nature of this resolution. Nevertheless the European Parliament passed the resolution today.
It merits mentioning here that this was a non-binding resolution so its not like Google is under any obligation to do what’s written in the resolution, which basically calls for the “unbundling of search engines from other commercial services.” The resolution states that this is necessary for “competitive conditions” inside the digital single market.
Even if the European Parliament cannot make Google act on this resolution this does draw the attention of the European Commission, which initiates Europe-based legislation, as well as EU member states who can independently force Google to unbundle its search and ad business at least within their territories.
The European Commission has previously been able to force Google to change the label of free-to-play games, so it remains to be seen what line it takes on this matter, and whether Google is going to have to make such a decision somewhere down the road.
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