Watchdog investigates Google over its search dominance

Google is being investigated by the UK competition watchdog over the impact of its search and advertising practices on consumers, news publishers, businesses and rival search engines.

- Robert Booth

The tech company accounts for more than 90% of general searches in the UK, according to the Competition and Markets Authority.

The CMA estimates that search advertising costs the equivalent of nearly £500 for each UK household a year, which could be kept down with effective competition.

The watchdog announced yesterday it will investigate if Google is blocking competitors from entering the market, and whether it is engaging in "potential exploitative conduct" by the mass collection of consumers' data without informed consent.

It will also investigate whether Google is using its position as the pre-eminent search engine to give an unfair advantage to its own shopping and travel services.

The investigation will take up to nine months and could result in Google being forced to share the mountains of data it collects with other businesses, or to give publishers greater control over how their content - books, newspaper articles and music - is used, including by Google's fast-growing artificial intelligence systems.