Europe has never been Google's biggest fan. After filing antitrust cases against Google over the past few years, the E.U. Parliament (made up of 751 members) went a step further and today passed a vote to compel Google to split its search engine from other parts of the company.

The vote, while symbolic and showing of Europe's resentment at Google's success, doesn't carry any weight, however. The E.U. Parliament is a dominant face of modern democracy but has no power to enforce a break-up of Google.

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The vote passed today, however, symbolizes bigger things to come. The EU Commission Office may speed up antitrust charges against Google under newly appointed antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager who's interested in getting the discussion back into the court room.

Ex-EU antitrust commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, tried three times to get Google to settle to new regulations but the company didn't back down and Almunia backed away from the case.

Most analysts believe Google won't split the search engine from its other services. The search engine generates a lot of the revenue Google makes and is an integral part of the whole Google experience.

The most likely outcome, if Vestager decides to take Google to court, is a new change in policy or a fine for being anti-competitive. Google's search engine controls 90 percent of all web searches in the West.

 Bing and Yahoo hold less than 10 percent in Europe.

In China and Russia, Baidu and Yandex are quite popular search engines. Neither offers an English supported service for Western users, however, and Google offers the search engine in almost every language.

Google makes billions of dollars from online ads in the search engine, including promotional links and text/image ads. If Google did break up the search engine, it would most likely work like YouTube and Calico, separate businesses with the same integration.

Google has declined to comment on the current issue.

TagsEuropean Parliament, Search engine, European Union, Europe, antitrust