The UK’s competition regulator is to begin an investigation of Google’s search services under new powers afforded to it by the digital markets competition regime.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it will examine whether the tech giant is unfairly using its market dominance in the UK, including:

• Whether Google is able to shape the development of new AI services and interfaces, including ‘answer engines’, in ways which limit the competitive constraint they impose on Google Search;
• Whether Google is using its position in the market to self-preference its own services, for example specialised search services covering shopping and travel; and
• The collection and use of large quantities of consumer data without informed consent, and the use of publisher content without fair terms and conditions.

The probe forms part of the new digital markets competition regime, under which the CMA may designate firms with ‘strategic market status’ (SMS) and thereby impose conduct requirements or propose pro-competition interventions to achieve positive outcomes for UK consumers and businesses.

The regulator said it will focus on “engaging a wide range of stakeholders – including advertising firms, news publishers and user groups – as well as gathering evidence from Google,” before reaching a decision by October 2025.

Potential conduct requirements could include, for example, requirements on Google to make the data it collects available to other businesses or giving publishers more control over how their data is used including in Google’s AI services.

CMA CEO Sarah Cardell said: “It’s our job to ensure people get the full benefit of choice and innovation in search services and get a fair deal – for example in how their data is collected and stored.

“And for businesses, whether you are a rival search engine, an advertiser or a news organisation, we want to ensure there is a level playing field for all businesses, large and small, to succeed.”

Google is by far the UK’s most popular search engine with 90 per cent of searches happening on their platform and more than 200,000 UK businesses advertising there.

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