Google search and ad business under UK microscope after unwanted designation

Google has become the first company in the United Kingdom to be hit with what regulators call “strategic market status.” The move exposes its search and advertising empire to direct monitoring by the country’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

The watchdog said the company’s dominance in both general search and advertising was “substantial and entrenched,” a status that gives the regulator power to impose rules, penalties, and enforcement actions when needed.

The CMA stated that concerns include the fairness of search results, the high price of advertising, and the growing impact of AI-generated responses. The agency argued that this level of control was aimed at making sure digital markets remain competitive.

A new UK law that came into force earlier this year gave regulators these new weapons to deal with firms that have reached this size of influence.

UK enforces new rules while EU and US escalate

Oliver Bethell, Google’s senior director for competition, warned that the government must avoid “costly restrictions” and “unduly onerous regulations.” He added, “Many of the ideas for interventions that have been raised in this process would inhibit UK innovation and growth, potentially slowing product launches.”

The designation is not a finding of guilt. It does not say Google acted anti‑competitively. But it gives the CMA the ability to step in if necessary, a major shift for how technology platforms are policed in Britain. The timing also matters.

The decision comes weeks after the European Union fined Google almost €3 billion, or about $3.5 billion, for favoring its own ad tech services. The EU also ordered the company to stop the practice. The penalty prompted then‑US President Donald Trump to label the move “very unfair,” adding that Washington could respond with higher tariffs.

The UK’s move is part of a wave of actions in Europe targeting the company’s global reach. While Brussels has hammered it with penalties, London is choosing a different weapon; formal oversight. Regulators now have power to decide how Google behaves in the market, not just punish it after the fact.

Court fights in US add pressure on bundling practices

The battles do not stop in Europe. In Washington, Google is fighting with the Justice Department over whether it can keep bundling popular apps with its artificial intelligence service, known as Gemini.

On Wednesday, company lawyer John Schmidtlein told federal judge Amit Mehta, “There’s no notion that Google has to date gained monopoly or market power in the artificial intelligence market.” He also said, “There’s been no finding that Maps is a monopoly product or that YouTube is a monopoly product.”

Judge Mehta is now writing a remedy to deal with the tech giant’s illegal conduct in search and advertising. Last month, he ruled that Google could not continue paying firms to exclusively use its Search, Chrome browser, or Play Store. He stopped short of banning all payments but ordered restrictions. The ruling drew language from both Google and Justice Department proposals, leading to another hearing where both sides tried to push their final edits into the order.

During the trial, witnesses testified that Google forces device makers into an “all‑or‑nothing” deal. To get access to the Play Store on Android, manufacturers had to preload nearly a dozen of the company’s apps.

That included Google Search as default, pushing out competitors like Microsoft’s Bing. This bundling practice is at the heart of the US case. The Justice Department wants the same limits applied to Gemini, a plan Google opposes.

Beyond the courtroom, YouTube remains a powerful piece of Google’s empire. Data from Nielsen shows that it now accounts for more viewing time than all of Walt Disney’s TV networks and streaming platforms combined.

It also generates more advertising revenue than all four major US broadcast networks combined. Every day, users watch over 1 billion hours of video on the platform, giving regulators even more reason to keep pressure on the company’s reach.

Want your project in front of crypto’s top minds? Feature it in our next industry report, where data meets impact.