The German government seems to be mounting a concerted campaign to push back against the global dominance of US tech companies. I wrote about two other recent initiatives here. The revelations about the NSA spying has definitely added momentum to the issue, but the EU has long pushed for more robust policies about personal privacy on the internet than those that are followed in the US. Now the German Minister of Justice is pointing the finger at Google and its ever expanding global reach.
German minister eyes possibility of breaking up Google
Germany's justice minister says the possibility of dismantling Google should be considered if the Internet giant abuses its dominant position, in a newspaper interview to be published Saturday.
"Just imagine an energy company that covers 95 percent of the whole market. The cartel authority would act quite quickly," Heiko Maas told Saturday's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
"Such conditions are, in market terms, not sensible, not healthy," he said according to a pre-released copy of the interview.
"So yes, if Google misuses its dominant position to systematically push aside competitors, then as a last means something like a dissolution should be considered," he said.
Maas said the digital era had long left behind national borders and rules and there was now a need for an "international network law".
Anti-trust law was expanded and enforced in the US during the first half of the 20th C. In the present neoliberal age it has pretty much gone out of fashion. It was originally focused on preventing dominance of national markets at a time when the US economy was mostly self contained. Most other countries have some form of anti-trust law but much of it is nationally focused.
The European Union has the power to engage in economic and corporate regulation across national borders. They would be able to adopt laws restricting the activities of global companies in the EU market space. They have already had some success in forcing Google to modify its privacy policies for European users.
This could get interesting.