Google May Be Forced To Make Changes To Uk Online Search, Says Watchdog

Google whitethorn person to make changes to its hunt services successful nan UK to guarantee greater competition, nan watchdog has said.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating nan American exertion elephantine nether a caller rule which intends nan regulator tin request changes astatine a patient if it is recovered to clasp excessively overmuch powerfulness successful a peculiar market.

Google accounts for much than 90% of searches successful nan UK and 200,000 businesses usage nan company's hunt advertizing to scope customers.

The patient said it would "work constructively" pinch nan CMA but said nan announcement presented "clear challenges" to its UK operations.

The CMA said it was not accusing Google of anti-competitive practices astatine this time, but it has group retired a "roadmap" of changes nan institution could make to its business up of a last determination successful October.

These could see requiring "choice" screens for users to entree different hunt providers arsenic good arsenic much transparency and power for publishers whose contented appears successful hunt results.

The watchdog launched an investigation into Google successful January, which it said would look astatine ensuring adjacent title successful online search.

Google's hunt operations person faced heightened scrutiny by different regulators.

A US judge ruled past August that nan institution had operated an forbidden hunt monopoly.

It has besides faced European Union enforcement action, including a €2.4bn (£2bn) good for allegedly "self-preferencing" its Shopping comparison work successful results.