Google should be broken up to curb its dominance of the internet, say MEPs.
The European Parliament is poised to call for the firm to be split into separate components in the most audacious attempt yet to loosen its grip on the sector.
A draft motion backed by several MEPs and leaked to the Financial Times said investigators should look at ‘unbundling search engines from other commercial services’. This would mean separating Google’s search functions from other features such as its YouTube video-sharing website, or its internet maps service.
One industry source said: ‘These guys are calling for the break-up of Google.’
The US firm is already being investigated by the European Commission in a long-running competition probe.
While the European Parliament has no powers to ban or block Google, the Commission is its executive arm and can levy fines or bring in new rules to curb the company’s power.
Google has grown to dominate the internet and international telecoms markets since it was set up in a garage in 1998. Its search engine accounts for two-thirds of all online searches, leaving rivals Bing and Yahoo trailing.
It also provides software for 80 per cent of the mobile phones sold across the world with its Android operating system, while its Chrome internet browser is used by roughly 30 per cent of home computers. It has also photographed every road in the UK and many other parts of the world in order to build up its ‘street view’ function, which allows users to see images of almost every home in Britain. During this project, the company inadvertently harvested data from millions of UK homes, which it was later ordered to delete or face criminal charges… see more
source: dailymail UK
Tags: Google, technology, Warn Euro MPs
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