General view of Google's headquarters in King's Cross as the tech giant faces a £5 billion lawsuit in Britain over alleged abuse of its online search dominance.
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LONDON – Britain's competition regulator activated new powers to regulate on Friday Googling's search activities, putting the US tech giant in the firing line for further regulatory action.
The Competition and Markets Authority has confirmed it is giving Google 'strategic market status' for its general search and search advertising services. It said that Google's Gemini AI assistant was not within the scope of the designation, although other AI-based search features were included.
“We found that Google retains a strategic position in the search and search advertising sector – with more than 90% of searches in Britain taking place on its platform,” Will Hayter, executive director for digital markets at the CMA, said in a statement.
“Taking into account the feedback we received following our proposed decision, today we have granted Google search services strategic market status.”
Google said its search product contributes billions of pounds to the British economy and that the country has so far been able to avoid costly restrictions on some of its popular services.
“Many of the ideas for interventions put forward in this process would hinder UK innovation and growth, potentially delaying product launches at a time of deep AI-based innovation,” said Oliver Bethell, senior director of competition at Google.
He added that Google hopes to see “results that reflect such ambitions” in the crucial months ahead.
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