A European Revolution against Google’s Virtual Colonialization?

The European Parliament reportedly is scheduled to vote this week on a political non-binding resolution urging the European Commission to “enforce EU competition rules decisively” against search engines, i.e. Google.

What is going on?

In a nutshell, this vote has three big effective implications. It is a political revolt and declaration of Independence from Google’s virtual hegemony. It is a rejection of former EC Vice President Almunia’s gross mishandling of the Google competition case. And it is a vote for a European “single digital market” to promote European economic growth and job creation.  

A Political Revolt & Declaration of Independence

First, this European Parliament vote is effectively a political revolt and a European Declaration of Independence from Google’s de facto virtual colonialization of the European digital marketplace and Google’s exceptional data dominance, and hegemony, over Europeans’ personal information. 

Google dominates >90% of the European search market, and apparently has abused its search dominance to proliferate Google’s dominance over personal data, digital advertising, mobile, maps and other key European digital markets.

Personal data “is the new currency of the Internet” and Google is “a business with a huge, huge, huge market share,”testified Margrethe Vestager, the new EC Vice President for Competition before the European Parliament, who has sweeping enforcement power over how Google competes, operates, and transacts in the European Union. Vice President Vestager added that “particular alertness is needed to ensure that dominant players respect the rules” in the digital sector.  

The European Parliament’s vote serves as a political referendum on Google’s treatment of European citizens as virtual vassals of a virtual sovereign Google – without any real rights to know, own or control their private data that Google routinely seizes without European consumers’ meaningful consent.  

Europeans appreciate that Google has repeatedly defied Europe’s data protection authorities’ enforcement that Europeans have a right to opt out of Google’s consolidation of their personal data across sixty Google services.

They also are aware of Google’s passive-aggressive opposition to the European High Court’s right to be forgotten ruling by effectively encouraging Europeans to evade the Court’s decision by going to Google.com rather than their own countries domain. And they appreciate Google’s strong opposition to storing Europeans’ private data physically in the EU under EU sovereign jurisdiction. 

Rejection of VP Almunia’s Mishandling of Google Competition Case

Second, this European Parliament vote is also an opportunity for Europe’s leaders to formally and strongly repudiate the mishandling of the EC’s Google competition case over the last four years by the former EC VP for Competition Joaquin Almunia. VP Almunia repeatedly refused to prosecute Google despite his repeated public warnings that he would prosecute Google for its alleged four abuses of its dominance.

Mr. Almunia’s proposed Google settlement mimicked the U.S. FTC’s weak Google settlement, which was based on weaker U.S. antitrust law.

It also appeared to be a unilateral surrender of European sovereignty to Google’s virtual sovereignty because: first it did not conclude Google’s >90% share was in fact dominant; second it did not conclude Google did anything wrong despite its findings of four abuses of dominance; third it would impose no fine or sanction that would deter future abuses; fourth it would provide no relief for those harmed by Google’s many abuses; and finally it would have handcuffed future EC enforcement going forward by shutting down any additional Google search investigation for five years despite growing search complaints of Google abuses.

Support for a European Single Digital Market

In order to form a more perfect European Union, one of the top priorities of the new European Commission is the creation of a European “single digital market” in order to generate economic and job growth in the years ahead.  

EU nations, including their citizens, businesses, and media, now understand that for all practical purposes they are virtually-dependent on Google to an exceptional extent to find and monetize information online, and for many mobile and map services.

As effective digital colonies of Google, their exceptional online dependency on Google is in stark contrast to other sovereign nations which have chosen to develop indigenous search engines like: the Czech Republic (Seznam has 45% share), South Korea (Naver has 72% share), China (Baidu has76% share), and Russia (Yandex has 62% share).

Simply, this vote for a single digital market is about Europe reclaiming sovereign control over Europe’s economy, culture, and data protection, because Google has effectively seized virtual sovereign control over much of Europe via its dominance, abuses of dominance and seizure of private data without the meaningful consent of individual Europeans.

In sum, Europe’s political leaders are wisely creating political unity and legitimacy around addressing the grand problem of reining in Google’s proliferating dominance and abuses of dominance before the European Commission seriously challenges Google with legal enforcement action in the months and years ahead.  

European leaders understand this effectively is an epic battle over who will rule sovereign over Europe’s virtual world and digital marketplace, Europeans or Google?

It also is a fight that neither Europe nor Google can afford to lose.

No one should expect Google to acquiesce. It is antithetical to everything in their being.

With this upcoming vote for European political consensus around Europe’s single digital market, Europe is making it much harder for Google to continue its longstanding chauvinism and imperiousness that Google knows better than Europeans what is best for Europe and Europeans.

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Google Unaccountability Series 

Part 0: Google's Poor & Defiant Settlement Record [5-1-12]

Part 1: Why Google Thinks It Is Above the Law [4-17-12]

Part 2: Top Ten Untrue Google Stories [5-8-12]

Part 3: Google's Growing Record of Obstruction of Justice [6-21-12]

Part 4: Why FTC's $22.5m Privacy Fine is Faux Accountability [7-12-12]

Part 5: Google's Culture of Unaccountability: In Their Own Words [8-1-12]

Part 6: Google Mocks the FTC's Ineffectual Privacy & Antitrust Enforcement [8-10-12]

Part 7: An FTC Googleopoly Get Out of Jail Free Card? [8-30-12]

Part 8: Top Lessons to Learn for Google Antitrust Enforcers [9-14-12] 

Part 9: Google Mocks EU and FTC in Courting Yahoo Again [9-26-12]

Part 10: FTC-Google Antitrust: The Obvious Case of Consumer Harm [11-25-12]

Part 11: Why FTC Can't Responsibly End Google Search Bias Antitrust Investigation [11-27-12]

Part 12: Oversight Questions for FTC's Handling of Google Antitrust Probe [11-30-12]

Part 13: Courts Not FTC Should Decide on Google Practices (The Hill Op-ed) [12-10-12]

Part 14: Troubling Irregularities Mount in FTC Handling of Google Investigation [12-17-12]

Part 15: Top Ten Unanswered Questions on FTC-Google Outcome [1-3-14]

Part 16: Top Takeaways from FTC's Google Antitrust Decisions [1-7-13]

Part 17: Google's Global Antitrust Rap Sheet [1-31-13]

Part 18: Google's Privacy Words vs. its Anti-privacy Deeds [3-8-13]

Part 19: Google's Privacy Rap Sheet Updated - Fact-checking Google's Privacy Claims [3-13-13]

Part 20: DOJ & FTC Report Cards [4-12-13]

Part 21: The Evidence Google Bamboozled EU Competition Authorities [4-19-13]

Part 22: EU-Google: Too Powerful to Prosecute? Problems with Enabling Google [5-1-13]

Part 23: Google's proposed EU Search Bias Remedies: a Satire [5-17-14]

Part 24: Google's Antitrust Rap Sheet Updated [5-27-13]

Part 25: Is This the Track Record of a Trustworthy Company? See Google's Rap Sheet [6-6-13]

Part 26: Top Questions as DOJ-Google Criminal Prosecution Deadline Approaches [7-12-13]

Part 27: The Evidence Google Violated the DOJ Non-Prosecution Agreement [8-8-13]

Part 28: Implications of EU Ruling Google Abused its Search Dominance [9-27-13]

Part 29: Google-YouAd is a Deceptive and Unfair Business Practice [10-24-13]

Part 30: EU's Google Antitrust Problems Not Going Away [12-16-13]

Part 31:  How the Google-EC Competition Deal Harms Europe [2-10-14]

Part 32: Open Letter to European Commissioners to Reject EC-Google Settlement [2-16-14]

Part 33: Google’s Extensive Cover-up [2-25-14]

Part 34: An Open Letter on Google’s Opposition to Distracted Driving Legislation [2-27-14]

Part 35: Google’s Widespread Wiretapping  [3-20-14]

Part 36: The Growing EC-Google Competition Settlement Scandal – an Open Letter [3-31-14]

Part 37: Google’s Glass House [4-14-14]

Part 38: Google’s Titan Spy-Drones Mimic Military Spy Planes [4-17-14]

Part 39: Google’s Anti-Competitive Rap Sheet Warrants Prosecution not Leniency [4-30-14]

Part 40: Google Apps for Education Dangers [5-17-14]

Part 41: Google AdSense Lawsuit Spotlights the Corruption of Unaccountability [5-23-14]

Part 42: Six Ways the FTC is AWOL on Google [7-16-14]

Part 43: Fact-checking Google’s Public EC Competition Defense [9-21-14]

Part 44: Top 10 Reasons Why Google is Causing EU More Problems than Microsoft Did [10-1-14]

Part 45:  Google Profiting from Hacked Celebrity Women Photos is “How Google Works” [10-6-14]

Part 46:  Fact-checking Google Schmidt’s “Ich bin ein Big-fibber” Berlin Speech [10-14-14]

Part 47:  Google’s Dominance Isn’t Peaking Its Proliferating! [11-4-14]