BREAK THEM UP AND THEN BREAK THEM UP SOME MORE: EU proposes breaking up Google over anti-competition concerns.

The European Commission has been investigating Google’s ad business, and specifically its market dominance, since 2021. Following its preliminary report, the EU has now sent Google a statement of objections.

“The Commission preliminarily finds that, in this particular case, a behavioural remedy is likely to be ineffective to prevent the risk that Google continues such self-preferencing conducts or engages in new ones,” says the EU Commission in a statement

In other words, the EU does believe that Google’s advertising business is anti-competitive — and that Google will not voluntarily change that.

“The Commission’s preliminary view is therefore that only the mandatory divestment by Google of part of its services would address its competition concerns,” continues the statement.

Previously: Hotel Googlefornia. “Jason Evangelho reports what happens when your smartphone, computer laptop, and tablet are denied access to ‘Google’s 8,699,648 (!) IP addresses,’ and the results weren’t pretty.”