AUS
NZ
UK
CA
USA
FRA
GER
ESP
ITA
NLD
PRT
SWE
GRC
IND
POL
BRA
ZAF
RUS
CHN
UAE
Highlights
- ACCC’s latest report on Digital Services Inquiry says Google is the most dominant search engine in Australia.
- Google spends a huge money to stay as the default search engine on most used default browsers in the country.
- ACCC has laid down ways to curb Google’s dominance in Australia.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), on Thursday, shared that Google might have to give up its position as the default search engine on mobile phones and tablets.
ACCC released a report on ‘third Digital Platform Services Inquiry’ today, as per which, Google is the most dominant search engine on the two most used browsers across Australia. Google continues to be the default search engine on browsers of Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari. These two are the pre-installed browsing services in Australia.
Also Read: Google’s dominance and irate watchdogs
Besides, the ACCC’s report suggested:
- It costs a bomb to Google for being the most dominant search engine on browsers in Australia.
- Also, Google owned Chrome, being pre-installed in devices, entrenches Google's dominance across Australia.
- Google’s unquestionable control and its potential to utilise its financial resources to fund arrangements to be the default search engine on devices, has been hurting competition and consumers.
- One of the surveys by ACCC revealed that most of the online content consumers choose to stick to the pre-installed browsers and pre-set search engines on their devices.
- The methods adopted by Google for being the most dominant have stopped new or evolving rival search engines from reaching consumers.
- This, ACCC suggests, has hampered innovation and decreased the choice of the consumers.
Google to get banned in Australia?
To address the issue of dominance, the ACCC has proposed a variety of measures.
- Choice screens should be given to consumers.
- This will help Google competitors have a fair opportunity in becoming preferred search engine.
- This will provide users options to decide how they want their privacy and personal data to be dealt with.
Do No Miss: Google dominated Australian online advertising: ACCC
As per ACCC, Google has a 94% share of the search market in Australia. This proposal would be the newest effort of ACCC to ‘depower’ Google in Australia.
