By Edith Hancock

The U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority published comments from companies, lobbyists and academics as part of its investigation into Alphabet's Google under its new tech antitrust rules.

The documents, published on Thursday, give an overview of how a broad mix of companies from retailers to broadcasters and tech groups rely on Google's ubiquitous search engine and whether they see problems with the platform's dominance in the digital economy.

Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Act, antitrust officials can designate companies with so-called strategic market status in relation to a particular digital activity and impose conduct requirements to make sure they compete fairly.

The CMA plans to use evidence companies send it to assess whether Google's search and advertising search businesses need to come under the scope of the DMCC and, if so, what the company needs to do to comply with the rules. That could mean requiring Google to make the data it collects available to other businesses or to give more control to publishers over how their data are used, including in Google's artificial-intelligence services.

"Google holds a monopoly in general search that is overwhelming and durable," according to a submission from Yale University Professor Fiona Scott Morton, which also says a monopoly on search services harms consumers in multiple ways.

Scott Morton's submission also said the company's contracts with Apple and with device manufacturers that add Google's search services as defaults on Android phones "cement Google Search as the first and best option for the vast majority of searches conducted by the vast majority of users in the Western World and have the effect of excluding rivals by inhibiting their access to Google's customer base."

Samsung said in its response that the CMA's potential intervention is likely to have a significant effect on it and other original equipment manufacturers as well as challenger browsers. "Samsung encourages the CMA to carefully consider the adverse consequences any intervention which significantly hinders OEMs' ability to generate service revenues from Google may have on those OEMs' ability to invest in and compete on product innovation and lower retail prices," it said.

BBC Studios, Premier League and Sky said in a joint response that "the size and reach of Google's search platform means that pirate services are widely propagated and legitimised, and rights owners do not have the ability, absent regulation, to compel Google to deliver controls that would be more effective." The broadcasters ask the CMA to consider using its digital rules to oblige Google to shore up how it handles illegal content listed in search results.

Ann Summers, the lingerie retailer owned by Gold Group, said that Google's SafeSearch feature--which gives users the ability to screen adult content in search results--unfairly impedes the company's visibility online and directs customers to its competitors, adding that the company "inconsistently applies its policies."

Google said in January when the investigation started that its search engine "helps millions of British businesses to grow and reach customers in innovative ways."

In its own response this week, Google said that its products have a "profound" positive impact on companies doing business online and that it is a vital resource in the digital economy.

"We strongly believe that the CMA will be able to move quickly to focus this investigation and give us a clear and predictable path forward for the coming months," Google said, adding it is committed to complying with the law.

Write to Edith Hancock at edith.hancock@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 28, 2025 08:06 ET (13:06 GMT)

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