European Parliament Wants To Break Google Up Into Smaller Companies

Google is a massive company and they have their fingers in all sort of pots – music, video, search, productivity, email, robots, self-driving cars, and so on. But are they getting too big? Well according to the European Parliament, it seems that they are thinking that Google is becoming too big for its own good, so much so that they are considering a draft motion that could see Google being split up into multiple companies.

This is according to a report from the Financial Times (paywall; via Android Central) where it seems that the charge is being led by the German representatives. The publication writes, “A vote to effectively single out a big US company for censure is extremely rare in the European parliament and is in part a reflection of how Germany’s politicians have turned against Google this year.”

So what happens should this vote come to pass? Well for starters, nothing. The European Parliament does not actually have the formal power to split up companies, although the motion will no doubt draw the attention of the European Commission which initiates Europe-based legislation.

Given that that European Commission has quite a bit of power, especially when they pressured companies like Google to change the label of free-to-play games and how they levied a fine against Microsoft over their Internet Explorer monopoly.

While Google declined to comment, the article writes that Google does not appear to be too pleased about it, “However, executives at the company are understood to be furious at the political nature of the motion and only became aware of the document in the past couple of days, after an MEP [Member of the European Parliament] contacted Google for advice on its meaning.”

Tyler Lee
Categories: Web
Tags: Google