Google under investigation to determine compliance with new UK competition law

Google is the first company to be investigated for potential strategic market position under the new UK Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Act. If it receives the designation, it will be determined in advance conduct requirements A draft will be prepared for the company’s compliance to prevent anti-competitive practices.

“The investigation will assess Google’s position in search and search advertising services and how it affects consumers and businesses, including advertisers, news publishers and rival search engines,” the Competition and Markets Authority said in a statement. Press release,

What is DMCCA?

The DMCCA, which came into force on January 1, is designed to regulate the behavior of major digital firms with significant market power in the country. It gives the CMA new powers to impose requirements on tech companies with a “strategic market position”, reminiscent of “gatekeeper” organizations that must comply with the EU Digital Markets Act.

To investigate Google, the CMA will look at whether it is using its position to stifle the innovation of others, such as withholding resources or designing AI services to limit how competing search engine equivalent features Can make. The CMA will also assess whether tech giants are using their dominant position to prioritize their search services (such as for shopping or travel), collect and use consumer data without informed consent, and publish content without fair terms and conditions. Is to use.

WATCH: UK government says Google is abusing its dominant position in ad tech sector

The DMCCA gives new enforcement powers to a group called the Digital Markets Unit, set up within the CMA. It will draft a unique set of conduct requirements for each company designated as SMS, which they will have to adhere to even before they can be performed to prevent them from exhibiting anti-competitive practices. Additionally, the DMU may undertake “pro-competition interventions” that would proactively address a company’s adverse effects on competition that arise from its disproportionate market power.

Conduct requirements for Google could include forcing it to make the user data it collects available to competitors or giving publishers more control over how their data is used, including by Google’s AI services. The CMA may continue to amend them even after the SMS verification is completed.

SMS-nominated firms must have substantial market power in digital activity, strategic importance and a global turnover of more than £25 billion or a UK turnover of more than £1 billion. The CMA will investigate each firm before applying for SMS status, which usually takes around nine months. In Google’s case, the decision will be made by October 2025, while interested parties can submit comments until February 3.

In August, the CMA rejected Google’s proposed policy changes regarding purchases made within apps listed on its Play Store, prompting an investigation. This revealed that the company would be one of the first to acquire SMS, as if the CMA accepted the changes, it would limit what action it could take under the DMCCA.

Search and discovery advertising, where an advertiser pays to have its ad appear next to a user’s search results, is the first of two areas of digital activity into which the CMA will launch an SMS designation investigation this month.

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CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell said in a press release, “Millions of people and businesses across the UK rely on Google’s search and advertising services – 90 per cent of searches occur on their platform and more than 200,000 UK businesses advertise there. ” release.

“That’s why it’s so important to make sure these services are delivering good results for people and businesses and there’s a level playing field, especially as AI has the potential to transform search services.”

EU and US also take issue with Google’s anti-competitive practices in search

In March 2024, Google temporarily removed some search widgets, such as Google Flights, to allow greater access to individual businesses in response to the implementation of the EU’s Digital Markets Act.

However, just weeks later, the European Union launched a non-compliance investigation after regulators claimed it was promoting its own services over third parties in search results. In December, Google announced several more changes to its search features to comply with the Act.

In September 2024, the European Court of Justice €2.42 billion fine upheld Against Google for violating EU antitrust rules by favoring its comparison shopping service, Google Shopping, in search results.

Additionally, in August 2024, a federal judge ruled that the tech company held a monopoly on general search services and text ads, breaking antitrust laws in the US.

However, Google is not going down without a fight. The tech company in 2019 successfully overturned a €1.5 billion antitrust fine it received from the European Commission for preventing third parties using its AdSense platform from displaying competing ads next to Google search results.

Google was also fined €4.34 billion from the European Commission in 2018 for abusing its dominance by pre-installing Google Search on Android devices, but that has not happened since then. put forward an appeal For the European Court of Justice.