In a dramatic new twist, Google’s regulatory problems have stepped up a with the European Parliament set to vote on a breakup of the search giant.
The motion, which was discussed in Strasbourg on Wednesday before a vote today, is a proposal to break Google’s search business away from its other services.
The move comes a day after an EU panel demanded that Google expands the “right to be forgotten” to its international .com search tool.
The new vote to break up Google is seen as an attempt to escalate Europe’s long-running anti-trust case against the US search giant, according to a draft motion.
However, the move is not quite as dramatic as it sounds. The body has no power to break up the net giant but the vote will send out a clear message about whether politicians want regulators to take a tough line.
The resolution in the European parliament is likely to pass on Thursday, but any final action would have to be taken by the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union.
One European member of parliament argued that “search engines like Google should not be allowed to use their market power to push forward other commercial activities of the same company.”
Google has around 90% market share for search in Europe and in 2010 rivals alleged that it was favouring its own products and services over those of rivals in search results.
The commission’s investigation centred on four areas:
• the manner in which Google displays its own vertical search services compared with other, competing products
• how Google copies content from other websites – such as restaurant reviews – to include within its own services
• the exclusivity Google has to sell advertising around search terms people use
• restrictions on advertisers from moving their online ad campaigns to rival search engines.
A clash of regulators
In February Google agreed to change the way it displayed search results for its own services but the concessions it suggested were heavily criticised by those who had lodged the original complaint, and the European Commission was forced to ask it to come up with a new plan.
Senior US politicians have criticised the proposal. A joint letter from two US government committees said that the way the EU is targeting US technology companies raised questions about its commitment to open markets
“This and similar proposals build walls rather than bridges [and] do not appear to give full consideration to the negative effect such policies may have on the broader US-EU trade relationship,” wrote senators Ron Wyden and Orrin Hatch and congressmen Dave Camo and Sander Levin.
Extension of right to be forgotten?
The move comes a day after an EU panel demanded that Google expands the “right to be forgotten” to its international .com search tool.
A panel of EU data protection watchdogs said the move was necessary to prevent the law from being circumvented.
Google currently de-lists results that appear in the European versions of its search engines, but not the international one.
The panel said it would advise member states’ data protection agencies of its view in new guidelines.
At present, visitors are diverted to localised editions of the US company’s search tool – such as Google.co.uk and Google.fr – when they initially try to visit the Google.com site.
However, a link is provided at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen offering an option to switch to the international .com version. This link does not appear if the users attempted to go to a regional version in the first place.
Even so, it means it is possible for people in Europe to easily opt out of the censored lists.