Google faces more scrutiny as UK watchdog flexes new digital competition powers

Britain’s competition watchdog says it’s investigating Google’s search ad business, adding to global scrutiny that the U.S. tech giant is facing. The Competition and Markets Authority said it will examine whether Google is weakening competition by stifling innovation, giving preference to its own services or exploiting user data. Using new powers to investigate competition in digital markets, the watchdog said it would determine whether Google should be given “strategic market status” that would require imposing remedies to change its behavior. The regulator said it will look in particular at Google’s role in shaping the development of new artificial services and interfaces such as “answer engines,” in ways that “limit the competitive constraint they impose on Google Search.”