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U.K. Launches Antitrust Probe Into Google's Search Business
The Wall Street Journal|January 15, 2025
U.K. antitrust officials said they were probing Google over its search services and how they might affect competition in the country, the first investigation of its kind under a new digital-markets regime that could force the Alphabet-owned company to make concessions.
- By Mauro Orru
U.K. Launches Antitrust Probe Into Google's Search Business

The Competition and Markets Authority said the investigation would seek to gauge the extent of Google's sway in the search and search-advertising services market and how this might affect consumers and businesses like advertisers, news publishers and rival search engines.

The probe comes less than two weeks after a new digital markets competition regime came into force in the U.K. Under the new rules, antitrust officials can designate companies with strategic market status in relation to a particular digital activity and impose conduct requirements to make sure they are competing fairly.

Officials will now assess whether Google has strategic market status in the search and search-advertising market in the U.K. and whether conduct requirements are warranted.

These could include requiring Google to make the data it collects available to other businesses or cede more control to publishers over how their data are used, including in Google's artificial-intelligence services.

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