The European Parliament has voted in favour of breaking Google up, as a solution to complaints that it favours is own services in search results.
Politicians have no power to enforce a break-up, but the landmark vote sends a clear message to European regulators to get tough on the net giant.
US politicians and trade bodies have voiced their dismay at the vote.
The ultimate decision will rest with EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager.
She has inherited the anti-competitive case lodged by Google's rivals in 2010.
Google has around 90% market share for search in Europe and rivals asked the commission to investigate four areas:
- The manner in which Google displays its own vertical search services compared with other, competing products
- How Google copies content from other websites - such as restaurant reviews - to include within its own services
- The exclusivity Google has to sell advertising around the search terms people use
- Restrictions on advertisers from moving their online ad campaigns to rival search engines
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BBC News - Google should be broken up, say European MPs