UK's Competition Watchdog Launches Antitrust Investigation into Google's Search Business

UK launches antitrust investigation into Google's search business - SiliconANGLE

UK launches antitrust investigation into Google's search business The UK's antitrust regulator has launched a probe into Google LLC's practices in the search market. The Competition and Markets Authority, or CMA, announced the investigation today. The move comes four months after a U.S. court found that Google maintains an illegal monopoly in the search and search text advertising markets. The Justice Department is seeking a set of antitrust remedies that could require the Alphabet Inc. unit to sell Chrome. The new CMA probe is the first of its kind to have been launched by the regulator under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act that went into effect in the UK at the start of the year. The legislation expands the CMA's ability to regulate large tech firms with so-called strategic market status. A company can receive this designation if its worldwide annual revenue is over $30.5 billion revenue or its UK sales exceed £1 billion. If a tech giant with strategic market status is found to breach antitrust rules, it can be fined up to 10% of its annual worldwide revenue. The CMA may also order the company to change its business practices. The newly launched investigation into Google focuses on its activities in the search and search advertising segments. According to the CMA, the probe will seek to determine whether the company has strategic market status in those two areas. Officials will also study the competitive impact of Google's business practices. As part of the probe, the CMA will evaluate whether the Alphabet unit is making it difficult for rivals to enter the search market. The review will place particular emphasis on competing artificial intelligence services. According to the CMA, officials will study whether Google "is able to shape the development of new AI services" in a way that limits their impact on its search engine's market share. Google offers specialized search tools geared towards use cases such as traveling booking and e-commerce. As part of its investigation, the CMA will check if the company gives those tools an unfair edge over competing offerings. The probe will also cover a number of other areas. CMA officials will look into whether Google collects data about consumers without obtaining informed consent. Additionally, the regulator plans to review the way the search giant uses content from publishers in its services. The CMA will collect feedback on the probe from interested parties until Feb. 3. If the regulator determines that Google has strategic market status and engages in anticompetitive behavior, it could order changes to its business practices. The CMA stated that those changes could require Google to share some internal data with other businesses and give publishers more control over how it uses their content in its AI services.

UK's CMA slaps Google Search and its 90%+ market share with an antitrust investigation | TechCrunch

The Competition and Markets Authority -- the U.K.'s antitrust watchdog -- is wasting no time in lodging its first official investigation of 2025 under its new rules that came into effect this month. It's looking into the market dominance of Google in Search, including the new work it's doing in AI search as well as its giant search advertising business, and what remedies it might impose to improve competition in the space. Those interested in responding to the investigation will have until February 3 to comment. This is the first of two investigations that the CMA is promising into Big Tech this month under its new rules, so keep an eye out for which company will be the subject of the second one. "Millions of people and businesses across the UK rely on Google's search and advertising services," said Sarah Cardell, Chief Executive of the CMA, in a statement. "That's why it's so important to ensure these services are delivering good outcomes for people and businesses and that there is a level playing field, especially as AI has the potential to transform search services. It's our job to ensure people get the full benefit of choice and innovation in search services and get a fair deal - for example in how their data is collected and stored. And for businesses, whether you are a rival search engine, an advertiser or a news organisation, we want to ensure there is a level playing field for all businesses, large and small, to succeed." The CMA has picked an easy target: it's already known that Google Search accounts for over 90% of all general search queries in the U.K., and more than 200,000 businesses use the portal to advertise. Plus, Google has already lost or is losing multiple antitrust cases in other jurisdictions over its search dominance -- most recently in its huge home market of the U.S., alongside multiple search cases in Europe. The CMA said it is in "regular contact" with other authorities. At issue for the CMA is whether it can designate Google's search business as having "strategic market status" (SMS). Once designated, it says, "the CMA can impose conduct requirements or propose pro-competition interventions to achieve positive outcomes for UK consumers and businesses." It will look in three main areas, it said. First, it's looking at whether Google is posing "weak competition and barriers to entry and innovation in search." Competition definitely is already weak (see market share, above), but the barriers to innovation are definitely debatable, given the advances we've seen from companies like OpenAI in providing "answers" as alternatives to basic search queries. It will also investigate whether Google gives preference to its own services in areas like advertising and AI. And lastly, it will look at whether Google is using large quantities of consumer data without informed consent. This will include using content from intellectual property owners and publishers. At its most drastic, the investigation could play out in the form of business break-up proposals, as they have in the U.S. Other remedies could include opening up search results to competitors, unbundling where its search engine is integrated, or opening up the advertising part of the results to other parties. This is already on the CMA's radar: it noted in its announcement that "effective competition could keep down the costs of search advertising, equivalent to nearly £500 per household per year, in turn lowering prices across the economy." The other big area to look at here is AI. The announcement of the investigation is coming at a time when Google is itself scrambling to improve its search experience in the face of new competition from AI-based services. Services like ChatGPT and Perplexity are building effective alternatives to google.com using generative AI technology to allow people to ask questions and receive -- instead of a long list of links -- fully-formed results, which might forego links to other sites altogether. Google itself has been building its own version of this experience, called Gemini, and it also has been returning fully-formed 'answers' to search queries at the top of its own results pages. The fact that there is now a unit at the top of search pages where Google delivers results from its own generative AI tech potentially gives it a window where it could be required to provide GenAI results from other parties.

Google's search ad business faces fresh investigation from UK's competition watchdog

LONDON (AP) -- Britain's competition watchdog said Tuesday it's investigating Google's search ad business, adding to global scrutiny that the U.S. tech giant is facing. The Competition and Markets Authority said it will examine whether Google is weakening competition by stifling innovation, giving preference to its own services, or exploiting user data. Using new powers to investigate competition in digital markets, the watchdog said it would determine whether Google should be given "strategic market status" that would require imposing remedies to change its behavior. The regulator said it will look in particular at Google's role in shaping the development of new artificial services and interfaces such as "answer engines," in ways that "limit the competitive constraint they impose on Google Search." AI-powered chatbots have become increasingly popular with internet users looking for information online. Google last year retooled its search engine so that it now frequently favors responses crafted by artificial intelligence over website links. Google said in a statement that it "will continue to engage constructively with the CMA to ensure that new rules benefit all types of websites, and still allow people in the U.K. to benefit from helpful and cutting-edge services." AI's potential to transform online search services means fair competition is important, said Sarah Cardell, the U.K. regulator's chief executive. "It's our job to ensure people get the full benefit of choice and innovation in search services and get a fair deal -- for example in how their data is collected and stored," Cardell said in a statement. "And for businesses, whether you are a rival search engine, an advertiser or a news organisation, we want to ensure there is a level playing field for all businesses, large and small, to succeed." The CMA will also investigate Google's practice of collecting vast amounts of consumer data without informed consent, and its use of content by online publishers without paying them fairly. The U.K. investigation is the latest salvo in an onslaught of regulatory pressure that Google is facing on both sides of the Atlantic. In both the U.S. and Canada, authorities are targeting Google's ad business with lawsuits accusing the company of anticompetitive or monopolistic conduct in the digital ad industry, which they want to resolve by breaking up the company. European Union regulators, meanwhile, have been carrying out their own antitrust investigation and signaled that they would push for Google to sell off parts of its business in order to satisfy concerns about its lucrative digital ad business.

Two weeks into 2025 and Google is already battling another antitrust investigation

The DOJ wants to break up Google, suggests splitting Chrome and Android Summary Following a 2024 marked by lawsuits and antitrust investigations, Google is now under investigation by the UK's CMA regarding its dominance in search and advertising markets. The CMA will assess Google's market position and its impact on consumers and businesses, specifically examining potential exploitative data practices, self-preferencing, and the creation of barriers to entry for competitors. The CMA's investigation, under the DMCC Act 2024, will conclude with an "SMS Decision Notice" in October ✕ Remove Ads Google's 2024 was riddled with lawsuits, anticompetitive investigations, and antitrust scrutiny from regulatory bodies worldwide. 2025 promises more of the same, if not worse. If being ordered to pay Russian media entities $20.6 decillion in fines wasn't enough, the Mountain View, California-based tech giant is now being investigated by the UK's CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) for its strategic market status (SMS)/market dominance in the search engine and advertising markets Related Why Russia fined Google an amount of money that doesn't exist All the money in the world and then some Posts2 The investigation, which falls under Part 1 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Act 2024, will culminate in October this year with the CMA offering its 'SMS Decision Notice.' During this time, the regulatory body will "assess Google's position in search and search advertising services and how this impacts consumers and businesses including advertisers, news publishers, and rival search engines," and decide whether "conduct requirements" should be posed on Google. ✕ Remove Ads Today, January 14, marks the CMA's official invitation to those affected by Google's dominance to comment and assist with the investigation. Interested parties will have until February 3 to comment. Google, on the other hand, is cooperating with the CMA, saying that it looks forward to "engaging constructively and laying out how our services benefit UK consumers and also businesses, as well as the trade-offs inherent in any new regulations. For reference, in the UK, Google Search accounts for 90 percent of all general search inquiries, while its search advertising services are used by more than 200,000 businesses. Here are the main issues the CMA is looking to investigate: Related Google says its 'blue links' search test in the EU did more harm than good It looks like 'blue links' aren't helping anyone Posts ✕ Remove Ads Potential exploitative conduct: The CMA will investigate Google regarding its possible collection and use of consumer data without informed consent, possibly to train its AI models. Additionally, the regulatory body also aims to investigate the tech giant's potential collection of intellectual property owned by publishers "without fair terms and conditions." Self preference: The CMA will investigate whether Google's search engine dominance results in it giving priority to its own services -- "for example, specialised search services covering shopping and travel." Barrier to entry for competition: The CMA will investigate whether the tech giant is using its position to stifle innovation. "In particular, whether Google is able to shape the development of new AI services and interfaces, including 'answer engines', in ways which limit the competitive constraint they impose on Google Search." If found to be guilty, conduct requirements could include Google having to make its collected data available to other businesses, alongside giving "publishers more control over how their data is used, including in Google's AI services." ✕ Remove Ads