U.K. competition regulator designates Google Search with ‘strategic market status,’ opening the door for potential interventions

The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said on Friday it designated Google as having “strategic market status” (SMS) under Britain’s new digital competition laws, which took effect earlier this year.

The CMA found Google to have “substantial and entrenched market power in general search and search advertising,” including for its AI-powered search features like AI Overviews and AI Mode — but excluding its Gemini AI assistant.

The designation allows the CMA to consider “proportionate, targeted interventions” to ensure competitiveness in search, though they do not indicate wrongdoing. The watchdog said it expects to consult on potential interventions later this year.

“We have found that Google maintains a strategic position in the search and search advertising sector — with more than 90% of searches in the UK taking place on its platform,” wrote Will Hayter, executive director for digital markets at the CMA.

Google, for its part, expects interventions to ensue. “Next, we will likely face new rules and regulations on how Search works,” wrote Oliver Bethell, senior director, competition at Google. He argued many of the potential interventions raised during the CMA’s months long investigation would “inhibit UK innovation and growth, potentially slowing product launches” and pose “direct harm” to businesses.

The news comes as regulators and enforcement agencies around the world take action to address allegations of anticompetitive conduct by Google’s market dominance. Last year, a U.S. federal judge ruled that Google maintained an illegal monopoly in search, though the ensuing remedies were largely behavioral.

Google is also awaiting the outcome of the remedies phase of a separate U.S. trial over the dominance of its ad tech business after a U.S. federal judge ruled earlier this year that Google maintained an illegal monopoly in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets.

In Europe, the European Commission fined Google €2.95 billion ($3.47 billion) in September after finding it breached EU antitrust rules “by distorting competition in the advertising technology industry.”