The Competition and Market’s Authority (CMA) in the UK launched a antitrust investigation to Google’s search services, following similar steps from the likes of JapanTHE United States and the European Union. This is the first review of the CMA under the The UK’s Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Actwhich began on January 1, 2025. The regulatory body previously announced that it would launch two separate investigations this month.

The CMA’s investigation will look into whether Google restricts external innovation, provides its own service preferences and collects or uses data without users’ consent. “Millions of people and businesses across the UK rely on Google for search and advertising services – with 90 per cent of searches happening on their platform and more than 200,000 UK businesses advertising there, ” said Sarah Cardell, Chief Executive of the CMA, in a release. “That’s why it’s so important to make sure that these services deliver good results for people and businesses and that there’s a level playing field, especially since AI has the potential to transform search services.”

The DMCC Act allows the CMA to designate certain companies with “Strategic Market Status” (SMS) around a specific digital activity – in this case Google’s search and search advertising services. Companies must have a global turnover of £25 million or £1 billion in the UK.

This label allows the CMA to have greater regulatory powers over these services and enforce pro-competition directives. For example, if the CMA grants Google’s search and search advertising services an SMS designation it could force the company to make the collected data available to competitors or to give publishers greater control over how Google uses their data. . The investigation could take up to nine months and the CMA is seeking comments until February 3 from interested parties.

Google has fought past investigations into calls to its search engine. However, in December, the company shared the proposed changes of its search services in the US, following the Justice Department’s call for it sell Chrome.