South Africa: Competition Commission Disrupts Google’s Unrepentant Advertising Monopoly

South Africa is the latest country to crack the whip on Google’s search monopoly.

The Competition Commission made a blockbuster announcement this month that Google needs to highlight, better, which results are paid for, potentially disrupting how the search engine giant shows its advertising.

The commission also focused on Google’s monopoly as the default search engine for Android smartphones.

The only surprising thing about this is why it took so long.

Google enjoys an unrepentant monopoly in search, both in South Africa and globally, while also dominating in mobile operating systems through Android.

“The inquiry has provisionally found that Google Search plays an important role in directing consumers to the different platforms, and in this way shapes platform competition,” the commission’s provisional findings from its online platforms market inquiry found.

“The prevalence of paid search at the top of the search results page, without adequate identifiers as advertising, raises platform customer-acquisition costs and favours large, often global, platforms.

“Preferential placement of their own specialist search units also distorts competition in Google’s favour.”