European Parliament Votes To Break Up Google

(RTTNews) - The European parliament on Thursday approved a resolution that calls for the unbundling of search engines from other commercial services that internet companies offer, implying the possible break-up of big internet companies like Google Inc. (GOOGL, GOOG).

The resolution, though non-binding in nature, was approved by 384 votes to 174, with 56 abstentions.

In the resolution, the European Parliament urged member states and the European Commission to break down barriers to the growth of the EU's digital single market and also stressed the need to prevent online companies from abusing dominant positions by enforcing EU competition rules.

"The digital single market could generate an additional €260 billion a year for the EU economy, as well as boosting its competitiveness," says the text of the resolution. However, it warns that "important challenges, such as market fragmentation, lack of interoperabilityas well as regional and demographic inequalities in access to the technology, need to be tackled in order to unlock this potential."

The resolution stressed that "all internet traffic should be treated equally, without discrimination, restriction or interference". It urged the European Commission "to prevent any abuse in the marketing of interlinked services by operators of search engines", stressing the importance of non-discriminatory online search. "Indexation, evaluation, presentation and ranking by search engines must be unbiased and transparent", the resolution said.

Google has been criticised by some European politician for misusing its dominant position in the search engine industry. The U.S. Internet giant commands around 90% market share for Web search in Europe.

Google is also in the midst of a long-running antitrust probe by the European Commission, triggered by complaints from Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Expedia Inc. (EXPE) and others.