Thread: European Parliament wants Google broken up
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Old 11-26-2014, 04:25 AM   #45
murg
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg View Post
Plus the biggest questions in my mind here are indeed political rather than literary. Does Europe really have the raw power to force the breakup of a big multi-national headquartered elsewhere? I'm not sure, but, probably, yes.
How?

It isn't like google needs to have physical assets in Europe.

Google can just withdraw from operating businesses in Europe. Still provide search from US (or other) based servers. Still accept money from advertisers in Europe. Unless Europe makes doing business with Google illegal. Then that opens up a whole kettle of fish. Unless Europe blocks Google's feed into European's browsers.

These restrictions would probably run afoul of World Trade rules, etc.

Even if Europe takes away google.eu/.fr/.es etc, Google can just continue to use its new TLD .Google (which it can probably arrange even if it doesn't already have it, as the ICANN people will react to the uproar over this blatant censorship).
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