Google Should Be Broken Up, Say European MPs

An anonymous reader is one of many to send word that the European Parliament has voted 384 to 174 in favor of unbundling search engines from other commercial services in order to ensure competition. "The European Parliament has voted in favor of breaking Google up, as a solution to complaints that it favors is own services in search results. Politicians have no power to enforce a break-up, but the landmark vote sends a clear message to European regulators to get tough on the net giant. US politicians and trade bodies have voiced their dismay at the vote. The ultimate decision will rest with EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager. She has inherited the anti-competitive case lodged by Google's rivals in 2010. Google has around 90% market share for search in Europe. The Commission has never before ordered the break-up of any company, and many believe it is unlikely to do so now. But politicians are desperate to find a solution to the long-running anti-competitive dispute with Google."

Comments

Re:No clue?

[Kjella]

The whole idea is stupid. What governments should of course be considering instead, if they find biased internet searches so troubling, is to create a government body that provides the same service upon a completely neutral basis.

"Neutral", seriously you want a government imposed Pravda? Or are you just trying to set up such an absurd left wing straw man to get everyone on Google's side? What the EU is generally against is bundling products and services because it hampers competition and creates vertical collusion and hidden costs. Say you buy a car only to find they use IP, warranty terms, secret error codes and such to make sure you only use original parts, authorized service dealers, approved fuel and tires from partners and so on . There's laws curbing such behavior because it's in the consumers' interest that car companies compete on making cars, auto repair companies compete on maintenance and repair and tire manufacturers compete on making car tires. It doesn't mean the government should jump in national everything so everybody gets "fair" maintenance on their cars.

For example, during the first iPhone launch here they tried playing the "exclusive carrier" game bundled with a high monthly cost, but our consumer laws demand you can terminate such a agreement by covering their loss. So those who wanted another carrier would sign up, got their iPhone, insta-canceled, paid for the full price of the phone and was free to sign up with another carrier. That effectively killed it, pretty soon after you could buy it directly with no subscription and sign up with whoever you wanted. And that's how it should be, phone manufacturers compete on phones and carriers compete on being carriers. Companies don't want free markets where prices are low and competition intense, they want dysfunctional markets where they can make huge profits. This is very obvious in software where they want you to buy into the Microsoft stack or the Apple stack or the Google stack. If the bits and pieces were compatible and interchangeable you'd see a lot more competition and many smaller third parties providing a few parts. Bunding is a way for megacorporations to make sure only megacorporations compete.

Re:EUgle?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Huh. I just Googled "Free email account" and the first three links were mail.com, gmx.com and yahoo.com. Google's GMail came in fourth. I guess Google doesn't understand how to properly bundle/discriminate against competitors given they're not doing what you say they can/are doing.

Re:EUgle?

[Almir43]

You probably have adblock installed. For me it comes up right on top, under sponsored results.