EU’s clash with Google over ad businesses raises radical prospect of divestiture

MLex Market Insight

Google is back in the European Union’s firing line over its ad businesses, with the bloc’s enforcer suggesting that the tech giant’s operations may be anticompetitive. But what’s truly radical about this most recent clash is the remedy that top official Margrethe Vestager is putting on the table: a requirement that Google divest part of its services. A forced breakup of a significant company isn’t how the European Commission usually does business. This time, however, EU enforcers can look across the Atlantic to build its case for some old-school trust-busting.