THE Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has today confirmed that the legal tests have been met to designate Google with strategic market status (SMS) in general search and search advertising services.

The UK’s new digital markets competition regime came into force on 1 January 2025, allowing the CMA to take targeted and proportionate action to improve competition in digital markets, helping to drive innovation, investment and growth across the UK economy.

Julian Calvert, chair of the ICNN advisory board, added: “The CMA announcement could be a landmark – it follows collective lobbying by a coalition of four groups – the ICNN,  the Association of Online Publishers (AOP), Independent Media Association (IMA) and Independent Publishers Association (IPA).

“There is still a lot of work to be done but we’re hopeful that this will lead to a fairer deal for independent publishers across the UK which is both long term and sustainable.”

Your Harlow publisher Michael Casey, who is a member of the ICNN Advisory Board said: “I am very pleased with this outcome.

The amount of work put in by my colleagues has been tremendous.

“There is now an opportunity for positive roundtable discussions with Google and all those with vested interests, where we hope the outcome can ensure publishers have real control over their content and that leads to a path to transparency, consent and fair payment.”

“I can only echo, that the CMA must now push ahead with remedies and put in place a robust set of conduct requirements to ensure publishers have genuine control over when and how their valuable content is used: that means real transparency, meaningful consent, and fair payment.

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https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-confirms-google-has-strategic-market-status-in-search-services