The U.Okay.’s competitors regulator mentioned on Tuesday it’s contemplating a brand new market designation for Google that may require the search large to offer various search choices to customers, rank search outcomes “extra pretty,” and provide better management to publishers over how their content material is utilized in search and AI Overviews.
Beneath the brand new digital markets competitors regime that went into drive earlier this yr, the U.Okay.’s Competitors and Markets Authority (CMA) mentioned it’s launching a session on whether or not to designate Google with “strategic market standing.”
Beneath that designation, which the CMA says is relevant to firms with a “sufficiently highly effective place” of their market, Google could be compelled to stick to a slew of measures, together with alternative screens to let customers resolve and swap between search providers (doubtlessly together with AI assistants); truthful rating rules for search outcomes; higher controls for publishers in how their content material — collected for search — is utilized in Google’s AI providers (together with AI Overviews and Gemini AI Assistant); and guaranteeing folks can switch their knowledge, similar to their search historical past.
In a weblog submit concerning the session and proposed designation, CMA chief govt Sarah Cardell famous that U.Okay. companies spent greater than £33,000 per advertiser on Google search adverts final yr.
“Google search accounts for greater than 90% of all common search queries within the UK, with tens of millions of individuals counting on it as a key gateway to the web […] If competitors was working properly, we might anticipate these prices to be decrease,” wrote Cardell.
“These focused and proportionate actions would give UK companies and shoppers extra alternative and management over how they work together with Google’s search providers — in addition to unlocking better alternatives for innovation throughout the UK tech sector and broader financial system,” Cardell mentioned in a separate assertion.
The CMA is at the moment amassing opinions on this designation and the proposed measures from trade stakeholders and can decide on the designation by October 13.
Google didn’t instantly return a request for remark.
