3 ms·

I wonder if Google will split in two as well. TFA refers to the internal controversy over their willingness to censor in order to please the Chinese government

• adventured 8y ago
  I think Google will actually split into more than two. Most likely the anti-trust heat out of the EU will become aggressive enough, and the rules in the US vs EU will increasingly be different enough, that the only thing that will make sense is to fully separate off a Google EU as an independent business. It's very plausible this will be the pattern for Facebook and Amazon as well given time. The divisions will then compete with each other globally. The EU will never catch up to the US in tech as things are now, so they'll continue to turn the screws until it becomes nigh unworkable to operate in their market if you're a US tech giant like Google. That will leave one good choice (to preserve shareholder value): split off Google EU. It's the last thing Google will want to do, they ultimately won't have a choice, other than to abandon the EU market. Influential nationalist politicians in the EU view these giants as a sort of foreign invasion, the ramping negative response won't finally subside until you give them a Google EU that they can treat as their own. It'll be like the baby bells.