EU Votes In Favor Of Breaking Up Google

The Euopean Parliament has voted in favour of ‘breaking up’ Google.

MEPs (Member of European Parliament) voted 384 to 174. The Parliament itself can’t break up Google directly, but the vote will place pressure on EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager to take action.

The motion, which was raised by Andreas Schwab, a German Christian Democrat, and Ramon Tremosa, a Spanish liberal, says that Google is operating unfairly, by using its estimated 90% share of the search engine market to promote its own products and services.

Select European countries, most notably Germany, have also shown displeasure with the way Google aggregates news content, without passing on revenues to the publisher.

While it’s believed the EU won’t exactly break up Google, they may receive a hefty fine. The BBC says that the previous EU competition commissioner, Joaquin Almunia, suggested that the only way to solve this problem, was to fine the company $5 Billion.

Source: The Telegraph, BBC News