Could Europe really break up Google? A look at what's possible -- and likely

Europe’s elected elite want to break up Google. But leading experts and academics say it’s not going to happen, calling it a nuclear option that would have made more sense in larger, prior corporate scandals.

There are several paths forward, experts say. Splitting up Google by unbundling its search business from its advertising business would leave the company without a way to make money from its search results “What’s most likely to happen, and what will hopefully happen, is a continuation of the resolution for which [former EU competition commissioner Joaquín] Almunia set the framework before he left office,” says David Balto, a former US Justice Department antitrust lawyer. Politics and pressure behind the scenes from Google’s competitors -- including Microsoft -- have dragged the case out “to draw as much blood as possible,” Balto argues. One question is whether the Commission has enough evidence to support moving from seeking a settlement to conducting an infringement procedure.