The European Union parliament is all set and ready to vote on the break-up of Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) later this week at their headquarters in Brussels. It will be the first time the European Union will vote on the break-up of any company; this move is to show how serious the conflict between the European Union and Google is.
Even if the vote does against Google on the break-up issue, the decision will remain a non-binding measure since the EU parliament has no power to break-up companies, which means vote against Google will have no impact on the company. However, it should act as a warning sign for Google that it must rethink its activities and reassess its strategies to avoid any potential problems in the future.
The European Union and Google have had a long stand-off ever since the European commission announced back in 2010 that it was looking into Google’s business practices. The EU parliament has already stated that it believes Goggle has created its monopoly and the company only looks after its own interests; it says that Google only takes steps that benefit the company itself and does not care about its users.
European Union has decided to vote on a resolution calling for legal action against Google Inc. for its uncompetitive behavior; through this resolution EU is hoping to separate Google’s lucrative search engine from other operations of the company so that it becomes a separate business. To prove that Google has broken the competition laws, European regulators must prove the dominance of Google in the Search Business market and bring forth evidence that the giant search engine has misused its power and authority.
The European Union without a doubt is very strict about such matters. The investigation into Google is being carried out keeping two aspects in mind. One is the investigation into the search results of Google.
First investigators are looking and analyzing whether or not Google down ranked sites that it thought could pose some competition to Google and its search engine. If proven that the company has indeed ignored its competitors on purpose then it would mean Google did break the law. Secondly, Investigators are looking into Google’s practices related to advertisement on Google search engine. They are examining whether or not Google imposed exclusive obligations on its advertising partners that may prevent smaller advertising networks from gaining traction.
The Executives at Google do not agree with these investigations; they are furious at the nature and timing of the vote, which according to them has political ambitions. Despite the vote having no legal effect on operations of Google, it will put a massive amount of pressure on the European commission to take a hard line against Google during the on-going negotiations.
However the European commission could very well take Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) to court on allegations of violations of European competition laws. It will then have to prove the allegations against Google in court and win the case for any chance of getting the Google split approved and authorized.