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UK to probe Google search impact on consumers and

businesses

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CMA will assess Google's role in search and search

advertising

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Move follows US scrutiny of Google monopoly

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CMA to decide if it should intervene in market

By Paul Sandle and Muvija M

LONDON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Britain will use new

regulatory powers to investigate Google's search

services to see how they impact consumers and businesses,

including advertisers and rivals, following U.S. calls to break

up the tech giant.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which gained a

wider remit over big tech this month, said search was vital for

economic growth and it was critical that competition was

working.

"Millions of people and businesses rely on Google's search

and advertising services - with 90% of searches happening on

their platform and more than 200,000 UK businesses advertising

there," CMA boss 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."

UK regulators including the CMA have been told by the Labour

government to prioritise measures that boost economic growth.

Google, in its response to the probe, noted the CMA's

comment that search was vital for growth.

"Google Search supports millions of UK businesses to grow by

reaching customers in innovative ways," a spokesperson said.

"We will continue to engage constructively with the CMA to

ensure that new rules benefit all types of websites, and still

allow people in the UK to benefit from helpful and cutting edge

services," the spokesperson added.

US PRESSURE

The CMA's move comes after U.S. prosecutors in November

argued to a judge that Google must sell its Chrome browser,

share data and search results with rivals, and take a range of

other measures to end what they called its monopoly on online

search.

In August, a U.S. judge said Google had violated antitrust

law, spending billions of dollars to become the world's default

search engine.

In the UK, Google is already in the CMA's crosshairs, along

with Amazon ( AMZN ) and Microsoft ( MSFT ) in the cloud computing market, while

the regulator is also set to probe the Google-Apple duopoly in

mobile browsers.

Under its new powers, the CMA must designate firms as having

Strategic Market Status (SMS) in relation to a digital activity

before it can investigate.

It said it would assess whether Google had SMS in both

search and in search advertising, and whether it should then

impose conduct requirements or intervene in the market.

It will examine barriers to entry and innovation in search

and whether Google uses its market dominance to offer

preferential treatment for its own services.

Google's collection and use of large quantities of consumer

data will also be looked at, it added.

The growth in AI-powered search engines, such as ChatGPT,

could challenge Google's dominance in the long term.

The CMA said it would examine whether Google was able to

shape the development of new AI services and interfaces to

counter this potential threat.

The result of the investigation, which will take up to nine

months, could include requiring Google to make data available to

other businesses or giving publishers more control over how

their data is used, including in Google's AI services.