A Surgical Strike: Why the UK is Targeting Search and Not Google’s Other Businesses

The UK regulator’s action against Google is a highly targeted, surgical strike aimed at the very heart of the company’s power: search. By designating “search and search advertising” with strategic market status, the Competition and Market Authority (CMA) has chosen its battleground carefully, rather than launching a broad, all-out assault on every aspect of Google’s business.
This focused approach is strategic. Search is the foundation of Google’s entire empire. It’s the source of the vast majority of its revenue (through ads) and the invaluable data that fuels its other products, from maps to its AI development. By targeting search, the CMA is aiming to address the root cause of Google’s market power, believing that this will have a positive knock-on effect on other areas.
A narrower focus also makes the regulatory task more manageable. Regulating a single (albeit complex) market like search is more achievable than trying to write rules for Google’s entire suite of products, which spans cloud computing, hardware, video streaming, and more. This increases the likelihood of designing and implementing effective remedies.
This surgical approach also provides a clearer test case for the UK’s new digital markets law. It allows the CMA to demonstrate the effectiveness of its new powers in a well-defined and critically important market before potentially expanding its scope to other areas or other companies.
So, while Google is a sprawling conglomerate, the CMA has zeroed in on the one business unit that underpins all the others. It’s a calculated move to strike at the core, believing that a successful intervention here will be the most effective way to rebalance the entire digital ecosystem.