Digital inquiry: Rod Sims’s new unit to bring the heat

A new ACCC unit will monitor and report on competition and consumer protection within digital platforms.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Rod Sims in Sydney on Thursday. Picture: AAP

The government is establishing a new unit within the ACCC to monitor and report on the state of competition and consumer protection within digital platforms, following criticism that Facebook and Google favour their own business interests through their market power.

The new watchdog, which has been bolstered by a $27m cash ­injection from the government, will hit the ground running with an examination of online advertising and ad-tech services that determine how consumers are targeted through the use of data.

The branch will monitor and report biannually on digital platforms, take enforcement action as necessary and conduct inquiries.

It comes after ACCC boss Rod Sims said the likes of Google and Facebook had almost unfettered market power when it came to ­online advertising.

“(The new unit) will do monitoring, which will tell us what developments there are in terms of new markets the platforms have gone in, what they’ve said they’re going to do and are they doing it, what have they said they might do overseas that they’re not doing, how they’re tracking people’s data now, and monitoring so that we’re all up to date,” Mr Sims said.

“It will also do enforcement ­action. If we see breaches of competition or consumer law, we can take action. And of course it will be doing the ad-tech inquiry.

“It will be talking to the Prime Minister’s digital taskforce and other government bodies to ensure things aren’t dropping through the cracks.”

One of the unit’s responsibilities will be to monitor the tech ­giants’ mysterious algorithms, which have been blamed for ­unfairly prioritising some businesses over others, and at times disinformation over real news.

“One of the purposes behind this new ACCC branch is to actually better understand the use of these algorithms to ensure that they’re not being used for mis­leading or deceptive or anti-­competitive conduct,” Josh Fry­den­berg said when the ACCC handed down its initial report in July.

“This particular branch of the ACCC will be able to be approached by various companies who believe that the algorithms have been misused.”

Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance chief Paul Murphy said the inquiry resulted in the tech ­giants receiving a virtual clean bill of health. “Setting up special units to monitor the already known ­impact of major digital platforms will fail to establish a level playing field,” Mr Murphy said.