The European Union wants to arm itself with new powers to penalize big technology companies, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

The proposed plan includes forcing tech giants to break up or sell some of their European operations if their market dominance is deemed to threaten the interests of customers and smaller rivals, the newspaper said.

EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, in an interview with the FT, said the proposed remedies, which would only be used in extreme circumstances, also include the ability to exclude large tech groups from the single market altogether.

Brussels is also considering a rating system in which companies' rating would be measured by their behavior in areas such as tax compliance and the speed with which they take down illegal content.

The issue of illegal content and disinformation online has raised public concerns within a number of countries. In the U.S., Facebook and Twitter had to remove posts they deemed as contaminating their platforms. 

The EU launched earlier this year a public consultation on a new Digital Services Act, which is aimed to offer a modern legal framework that will regulate online content. Once enacted, Brussels would be given more powers to scrutinize the way technology companies gather information on users. 

Breton told the FT that draft legislation will be drawn up before this year comes to an end, and that the EU is not removing limited liability companies have for the content published on their platforms.