European Parliament votes to ask for Google to be broken up

The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly today to ask antitrust regulators to strongly consider steps that would force Google to separate its search business from all other services it offers.

The measure passed by a vote of 384 in favor and 174 against. While the resolution is non-binding, it calls on European Commission regulators “to consider proposals with the aim of unbundling search engines from other commercial services.”

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The measures does not mention Google by name, but the company has a 90 percent marketshare for search in Europe. The vote is just the latest sign of the growing backlash Google is facing from politicians across Europe.

The parliament vote now puts added pressure on the EC’s new antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager. When she took office this month, she inherited a four-year antitrust investigation involving Google. She has signaled in previous statements that she would take a slow approach to reconsidering the evidence against Google.