Australia: Google Refuses regulators call for scrutiny

Alphabet’s Google has rejected calls by Australia’s competition regulator for tougher scrutiny of its operations, denying that it enjoys market power in online searches and advertising, documents published on Monday, March 4, showed. The global giant was responding to recommendations made late last year by the watchdog, such as increased scrutiny and a new regulatory body to monitor the dominance of tech giants in online advertising and news markets.

“The preliminary report bases many of its recommendations on the mistaken premise that Google has market power in search, search advertising, and news media referrals,” Google wrote in a statement published by the regulator.

“Google faces fierce competition from other providers, including vertical search sites like Amazon, Expedia, Domain and Carsales.com, many of which users access directly through mobile apps.”

The regulator had claimed the enormous market power of firms such as Google, which has a 94% share of web searches in Australia, and their opaque methods for ranking advertisements, gave them the ability and incentive to favor their own businesses over advertisers. In preliminary recommendations that are subject to change, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) also claimed the new regulator should have powers to investigate how the companies rank advertisements and news articles.