LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Britain’s competition watchdog Tuesday launched an investigation into Google’s dominant position in the search engine market and its impacts on consumers and businesses.

The investigation could lead to the United States (US) tech giant being handed “strategic market status”, subjecting it to special requirements under new United Kingdom (UK) regulations, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said in a statement.

The CMA will probe whether “Google is using its position to prevent innovation by others” in the search engine market and whether it gives “self-preference” to its own services.

It will also look into “potential exploitative conduct” including investigating the collection and use of large quantities of consumer data without informed consent.

A Google spokesperson said the company will “continue to engage constructively with the CMA”.

They added: “Google Search supports millions of UK businesses to grow by reaching customers in innovative ways. The CMA’s announcement today recognises that.”

Under the UK’s tougher new regulation that came into force this year, the watchdog has been given more powers to develop and enforce conduct requirements on companies to prevent anti-competitive behaviour in digital markets.

Potential requirements could include Google having to make the data it collects available to other businesses or giving publishers more control over how their data is used, the CMA said.

A similar tech competition law from the European Union, the Digital Markets Act, carries hefty financial penalties for giants like Apple, Google and Meta in the event of infringements.

“Millions of people and businesses across the UK rely on Google’s search and advertising services — with 90 per cent of searches happening on their platform and more than 200,000 UK businesses advertising there,” CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell said in the statement.

“That’s why it’s so important to ensure these services are delivering good outcomes for people and businesses and that there is a level playing field,” she added.

The probe is in its preliminary stages with the CMA firstly inviting comments to determine the scope of the investigation.

It aims to reach a final outcome on the probe by October.

Google is also fighting an antitrust crackdown in the United States after the Department of Justice asked a federal court in November to order it to sell its widely used Chrome browser.

The DOJ also asked the court to ban deals for Google to be the default search engine on smartphones and prevent it from exploiting its Android mobile operating system.