Google faces stricter regulation in UK over search dominance

Google could be forced to change its search operations in the UK after it became the first company subject to new powers from Britain’s competition regulator to tackle the dominance of BigTech.

- PAUL SANDLE & MUVIJA M

Competition regulators have long had Alphabet-owned Google in their sights and Britain’s landmark ruling on Friday designating Google as having strategic market status in online search, gives the UK’s regulator more power tostepin.

“We have found that Google maintains a strategic position in the search and search advertising sector ‘with more than 90 per cent’ of searches in the UK taking place on its platform,” the Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA) Executive Director for Digital Markets Will Hayter said.

Possible interventions