The European Parliament is seeking Google to split up its search engine business from the rest of its commercial operations.
According to Financial Times report [paywalled], the European People’s Party (EPP) and the European Socialists & Democrats (S&D), two of the largest parties by seats in the European Parliament, are backing a motion that calls for the search giant to split up from its other commercial interests.
A draft motion seen by the FT says an “unbundling [of] search engines from other commercial services” could be a potential solution to tackle Google’s dominant position in the European search market.
Although the European Parliament lacks the formal authority to split up corporations, a public motion, which is a non-binding resolution, will step up the pressure on the European Commission to act against the search giant.
Google, which has almost 90 percent of the search market share in the European Union, is currently facing multiple challenges in Europe from European parliamentarians and regulators on a range of issues including privacy, search rankings and copyright.
Neither the European Commission nor Google have so far commented on the development.
The final draft of the resolution text will be agreed upon early next week, ahead of a vote in Parliament, which is expected on Thursday.