
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched an investigation into whether Google has strategic market status in online search and search advertising.
The search engine accounts for more than 90% of all general search queries in the UK, and over 200,000 UK businesses use its search advertising. The CMA investigation will explore how Google’s market dominance is impacting consumers and businesses including advertisers, news publishers, and rival search engines.
The investigation is the CMA’s first strategic market status (SMS) designation investigation under the new digital markets competition regime which came into force on 1 January 2025.
The CMA may designate firms with SMS in relation to a particular digital activity. Once designated, the CMA can impose conduct requirements or propose pro-competition interventions to achieve positive outcomes for UK consumers and businesses.
The issues that will form part of the CMA’s investigation include:
- Weak competition and barriers to entry and innovation in search. The CMA will assess how competition is working and if Google is using its position to prevent innovation by others. This includes whether barriers to entry are preventing other competitors from entering the market, in particular 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.
- Possible leveraging of market power and ensuring open markets. This will include investigating whether Google is using its position in the market to self-preference its own services, for example specialised search services covering shopping and travel.
- Potential exploitative conduct. This will include investigating the collection and use of large quantities of consumer data without informed consent, and the use of publisher content without fair terms and conditions (including payment terms).
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.
Sarah Cardell, Chief Executive of the CMA, said:
“Millions of people and businesses across the UK rely on Google’s search and advertising services – with 90 per cent of searches happening on their platform and more than 200,000 UK businesses advertising there. That’s why it’s so important to ensure these services are delivering good outcomes for people and businesses and that there is a level playing field, especially as AI has the potential to transform search services.
“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.”
The CMA investigation into Google will take place over the next nine months, and engage with 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.