The News
The UK’s competition watchdog launched a formal antitrust investigation into Google on Tuesday, marking the latest probe into the US tech giant’s global dominance over online search.
The probe aims to assess whether the firm should be granted “strategic market status,” a move that would see it subject to certain rules or pro-competition interventions, such as giving publishers more control over how their data is used.
“It’s our job to ensure people get the full benefit of choice and innovation in search services and get a fair deal,” Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the Competition and Markets Authority, said.
Know More
The probe is the latest in Google’s antitrust woes: The European Court of Justice in September ordered the firm to pay a €2.4 billion ($2.46 billion) fine for “discriminatory” anticompetitive conduct, while the US Department of Justice called for Google’s breakup in November after a federal judge ruled that the company had maintained an illegal search monopoly through exclusive deals with Apple and other players.
But the imminent return of US President-elect Donald Trump to the White House could bring some relief to Big Tech in Europe as Brussels launches a review of its antitrust cases in anticipation of a less supportive Washington. “It’s going to be a whole new ballgame with these tech oligarchs so close to Trump and using that to pressurise us,” a senior EU diplomat told the Financial Times.
Notable
- Big Tech is recruiting former antitrust regulators to fight its battles with the EU, and the European Commission is so far proving toothless in challenging these potential conflicts of interest, researchers argued in EUObserver.
- The incoming Trump administration may support a potential Google breakup, not because it cares about anticompetitiveness, but because it wants to punish the company for its perceived control over free speech, a Bloomberg antitrust reporter told The Verge.