By Barry Eitel
SAN FRANCISCO
European Union lawmakers will most likely vote Thursday on a resolution to breakup Google and other large tech companies working in the EU.
The group would have no power to actually enforce such a measure, but it would encourage regulators to take a stronger stance against the companies.
Google has avoided getting caught up in antitrust cases that have been largely aimed at search engines and advertising companies.
If the parliament passes the legislation, however, it would put pressure on competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager to bring formal charges against the Mountain View, California, tech giant.
If no settlement is reached, Google could face almost $6 billion in fines and severe hurdles with doing business in the Eurozone, a lucrative market. In some European nations, Google’s search engine feature controls almost 90 percent of the market – even more than in the United States.
A draft of the resolution was revealed late last week. The language of the joint resolution will be worked out tomorrow by the conservatives, liberals and socialists, the majority of the parliament. A debate will follow Wednesday and a vote could come as early as Thursday, according to EU officials today.
Last week’s draft from Andreas Schwab, a German Christian Democrat, and Ramon Tremosa, a Spanish liberal, called for search engines to be separate companies from other for-profit ventures.
Many advocates of the law are worried about massive businesses based in Silicon Valley suffocating local innovation in Europe. Schwab and Tremosa believe separating Google’s search engine from its myriad other interests would allow for more competition.
Some conservative members are against the measure, though, which would be the first time the parliament called for a company to break up in order to get in line with antitrust measures.
"Threatening Google and other large Internet companies who (sic) are in fierce competition with each other is a loser's debate," Kurt Lauk, of Germany’s CDU party, told German newspaper Handelsblatt in a story published over the weekend.
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