The Competition and Markets Authority, which is the U.K.’s antitrust watchdog, is starting its first official review of 2025 right away. This is because its new rules went into effect this month. Google is the market leader in Search, and it’s looking into what it could do to make the competition stronger. This includes Google’s new work in AI search and its huge search advertising business.
People who want to speak on the investigation have until February 3 to do so.
Because of its new rules, the CMA plans to look into Big Tech twice this month. Keep an eye out for which company will be the subject of the second probe.
In a statement, Sarah Cardell, CEO of the CMA, said, “Millions of people and businesses across the UK depend on Google’s search and advertising services.” Because of this, it is very important to make sure that these services help people and companies and that everyone has the same chances, especially since AI could change search services. We are responsible for making sure that everyone gets a good deal and has a lot of options when it comes to search services. For example, we make sure that people know how their data is collected and stored. And for companies, we want to make sure that all of them have the same chances to succeed, no matter if they are a competing search engine, an advertiser, or a news group.
Over 90% of all general search queries in the U.K. go to Google Search, and more than 200,000 businesses use the site to promote. This makes it an easy target for the CMA.
Also, Google has lost or is losing a number of antitrust cases in other places because it is so dominant in search. The most recent of these was in the U.S., which is its home market and a huge market for search. The CMA said that it talks to other officials “regularly.”
The CMA needs to decide if it can say that Google’s search business has “strategic market status” (SMS). To make things better for UK consumers and companies, it says, “once designated, the CMA can impose conduct requirements or propose pro-competition interventions.”
It Said It Would Look In Three Main Places
To begin, it checks to see if Google creates “weak competition and barriers to entry and innovation in search.” There isn’t much competition right now (see market share above), but it’s not clear what stops people from coming up with new ideas, since companies like OpenAI are getting better at giving “answers” instead of just basic search questions.
In areas like AI and ads, it will also look into whether Google gives its own services more weight. Lastly, it will check to see if Google is using a lot of customer data without their permission. This will include using information from publishers and people who own intellectual property.
In its worst form, the study could lead to plans to break up businesses, like they do in the U.S. Other solutions could include letting competitors see its search results, separating the parts of its site where its search engine is used, or letting other parties see the ads that show up in the results.
As it said in its announcement, the CMA is already aware of this problem. It said 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.”
AI Is The Other Big Thing To Look At Here
News of the review comes at a time when Google is also working hard to make its search experience better because AI-based services are becoming more of a threat. With generative AI technology, services like ChatGPT and Perplexity are making good options to google.com that let people ask questions and get fully-formed results instead of a long list of links. These results might not include any links to other sites at all.
Also Read: Google is Putting Together a New Group to Make Ai That Can Mimic the Real World
This is something that Google has been working on as well. It’s called Gemini, and it gives fully formed “answers” to search questions at the top of its own results pages. There is now a section at the top of search results pages where Google shows results from its own creative AI technology. This could mean that Google needs to show GenAI results from other companies.
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