Australia’s consumer watchdog is investigating online search engines to understand what impact they have on business competition.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has previously looked into the area, most recently in 2021, but is now launching a new probe due to developments by the tech giants that run the services.
It is seeking public submissions to understand what web users want from search engines, and to gauge the relationship between search quality and market competition.
“Significant changes have occurred since the ACCC last examined search services in 2021” ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said.
“We’ve seen new laws introduced overseas that place obligations on so-called gatekeeper search engines and the emergence of new technologies, like generative AI, that have changed the way consumers search for information online and may be impacting the quality of the service they are receiving.
“The ACCC wants to understand the impact of these developments on general search services and ultimately, how they affect competition and consumers.”
Its last investigation into the area found Google’s position as the dominant search engine was aided by it being pre-installed on some devices.
Google has about a 90 per cent market share, dwarfing rival search engines like Bing and Yahoo.
The ACCC said it will look at the impact of new laws in other countries, including the UK and European Union, that force search engines to promote competition, as well as the role of artificial intelligence in the area.
We are eager to hear from businesses and consumers about their experiences with general search services to better understand how regulatory and industry developments are affecting the level of competition and consumers in the market for general search services,” Cass-Gottlieb said.
The investigation will form part of a report due to be finalised by the end of September.
