The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the U.K.’s antitrust watchdog, has launched its first official investigation of 2025 under new rules that came into effect this month. The investigation focuses on Google’s dominance in the search market, including its AI search initiatives and its extensive search advertising business. The CMA aims to identify potential remedies to enhance competition in this space.
Interested parties have until February 3 to submit their comments on the investigation.
This is the first of two Big Tech investigations the CMA plans to conduct this month under its new rules. The second company to be investigated will be announced soon.
Sarah Cardell, Chief Executive of the CMA, commented;
Millions of people and businesses across the UK rely on Google’s search and advertising services. It’s crucial to ensure these services deliver good outcomes and that there is a level playing field, especially as AI has the potential to transform search services. Our job is to ensure people benefit from choice and innovation in search services and get a fair deal, particularly regarding data collection and storage. For businesses, whether a rival search engine, an advertiser, or a news organization, we want to ensure a level playing field for all.
Google Search, which accounts for over 90% of all general search queries in the U.K., is already facing multiple antitrust cases in other jurisdictions, including the U.S. and Europe. The CMA is in regular contact with other authorities regarding these issues.
The CMA will determine if Google’s search business can be designated as having “strategic market status” (SMS). If designated, the CMA can impose conduct requirements or propose pro-competition interventions to benefit UK consumers and businesses.
The investigation will focus on three main areas:
- Whether Google poses weak competition and barriers to entry and innovation in search.
- Whether Google gives preference to its own services in areas like advertising and AI.
- Whether Google uses large quantities of consumer data without informed consent, including content from intellectual property owners and publishers.
Potential outcomes of the investigation could include business break-up proposals, opening up search results to competitors, unbundling integrated search engines, or opening up the advertising part of the results to other parties. The CMA noted that effective competition could reduce the costs of search advertising, potentially saving nearly £500 per household per year and lowering prices across the economy.
The investigation comes at a time when Google is enhancing its search experience to compete with AI-based services like ChatGPT and Perplexity, which provide fully-formed results instead of a list of links. Google’s own AI initiative, Gemini, and its practice of returning fully-formed answers at the top of search results pages, could be scrutinized to ensure fair competition with other generative AI technologies.