Google may be required to overhaul the way its search engine operates in the UK after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) confirmed it has granted the tech giant “strategic market status” (SMS) under the country’s new Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA).
The landmark decision, announced on Friday, gives the CMA sweeping new powers to impose legally binding rules on Google’s search and advertising businesses — which together account for over 90% of all online searches in the UK.
While the designation is not a finding of wrongdoing, it allows regulators to step in later this year with potential measures aimed at increasing competition in digital markets.
Under its new status, Google could be required to offer users alternative search engines via “choice screens”, introduce greater transparency in how results are ranked, and provide publishers with more control over how their content is displayed or monetised online.
Will Hayter, who leads the CMA’s digital markets unit, said the move reflected the company’s long-established dominance.
“Google maintains a strategic position in the search and search advertising sector, with more than 90 per cent of searches in the UK taking place on its platform,” Hayter said.
“Having taken into account feedback following our proposed decision, we have today designated Google’s search services with strategic market status.”
The CMA said its goal is to ensure “fairer competition and more choice for consumers”, while fostering innovation and reducing barriers for rivals to compete in the UK’s £20 billion online advertising market.
In response, Google said it would cooperate with the regulator but warned that heavy-handed or unclear rules could have the opposite effect, slowing innovation and harming UK competitiveness.
Oliver Bethell, Google’s senior director for competition, said: “UK businesses and consumers have been amongst the first to benefit from Google’s innovations, often months before their European counterparts.
“Many of the ideas for interventions raised in this process would inhibit UK innovation and growth, potentially slowing product launches at a time of profound AI-based innovation.”
Sources told Business Matters that Google executives have grown increasingly frustrated by the lack of clarity over what interventions may follow. The company is concerned that sweeping or unpredictable rules could make it harder to invest and roll out new AI-driven features in the UK — a concern shared by other major tech firms observing the new regime.
The CMA will now consult on possible remedies, with proposals expected to be published later in 2025. These could include new transparency obligations for search ranking algorithms, restrictions on how data is shared across Google’s vast advertising ecosystem, and new oversight of how it integrates AI into its products.
Officials insist the purpose of the new regime is not to punish successful firms, but to ensure open digital markets that benefit both consumers and competitors.
“Our role is to promote competition and innovation, not to stifle it,” a CMA spokesperson said.
The move comes as the UK seeks to establish its own post-Brexit framework for Big Tech oversight, diverging from both the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the US Department of Justice’s more litigious approach.
With Google the first major company to be formally designated under the UK’s new rules, the outcome of the CMA’s next steps will be closely watched by global tech firms — including Meta, Amazon, and Apple — as Britain tests its new powers to rein in digital giants.
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Google could be forced to change search operations in the UK