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LONDON — Britain’s competition watchdog on Tuesday said that it’s opening a formal antitrust investigation into Google’s search and search advertising services.
The Competition and Markets Authority said that it’s looking to assess whether Google has “strategic market status” (SMS) under the new U.K. Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC).
The DMCC is a law that aims to prevent anti-competitive behavior in digital markets. Designation of a company as having “SMS” would give the regulator the power to impose changes to prevent anti-competitive behavior.
Alphabet‘s Google was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
Sarah Cardell, the CMA’s chief executive, said the regulator was probing Google’s dominance of the search market to ensure a “level playing field” — especially as artificial intelligence is shifting the way people search online.
“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.
“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,” she added.
The CMA move follows a bid from the U.S. Department of Justice to force Google to divest its Chrome browser. The DOJ filed to break the internet giant up after finding it holds a monopoly in the search market.
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