It seems that people just can’t let sleeping dogs lie, can they? Just when we thought we’d thought we’d heard the last of the Google EU antitrust settlement situation, it has decided to rear it’s ugly head once again. It looks like there has been quite the dissatisfaction among public and political figures with the existing antitrust settlement between Google and the European Commission. Because of this, the settlement could be in danger. The Wall Street Journal says that there has been an increase in “rhetoric against the settlement with Google” with the upcoming European Parliament elections looming.
There has been some behind he scenes lobbying efforts by both sides, according to the WSJ article, that has grown quite intense. On one side, Google is trying to keep the settlement going, which is understandable, but on the flip side, there are other officials who want to go back to the beginning and start completely over. There are several things that are rubbing Europeans the wrong way in this situation, such as their general ill will towards Google, as well as the allegations of NSA spying. None of these are really helping Google’s case over in Europe right now.
With the European Parliamentary elections just concluded, we aren’t sure how this will affect pressure on the European Commission to either change, or totally toss the existing settlement.
This is what the WSJ had to say about the anti-Google rhetoric:
The French government said it would push for a new European law later this year to classify Google and other Web giants like public utilities, forcing them to guarantee access to all of its services like phone operators. In Germany, Economics Minister Sigmar Gabriel advanced the idea of breaking apart Google in a German newspaper this week, though officials acknowledge such a move would require new laws.
At this point, there is no defiant move to do this, but we’ll have to see what happens in the future of this settlement.