UK to impose tougher rules on Google, Facebook

Britain will unleash a new watchdog on Google, Facebook and other tech giants in an effort to limit their power.

‘The dominance of just a few big tech companies is leading to less innovation, higher advertising prices and less choice,’ says Business Secretary Alok Sharma.

Britain will unleash a new watchdog on Google, Facebook and other tech giants in an effort to limit their power, ensure smaller companies can compete and improve transparency on their use of people’s data.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport on Friday said the new regulator, the Digital Markets Unit, would “govern the behaviour of platforms that currently dominate the market, such as Google and Facebook”.

The aim was “to ensure consumers and small businesses aren’t disadvantaged”, it said.

The unit is being created after the UK Competition and Markets Authority said in July that existing laws were not effective.

“Our new, pro-competition regime for digital markets will ­ensure consumers have choice, and mean smaller firms aren’t pushed out,” Business Secretary Alok Sharma said.

He acknowledged the online platforms brought “huge benefits for businesses and society”, but “the dominance of just a few big tech companies is leading to less innovation, higher advertising prices and less choice and control for consumers”.

A new statutory code will aim to make the tech giants “more transparent about the services they provide and how they are using consumers’ data”, it said.

Consumers will be able to choose whether to see personalised advertising, the government said.

The new regulator will be launched in April and could have powers to “suspend, block and ­reverse decisions of tech giants”, order them to take actions and impose fines.

The new code could also mean online platforms have to offer fairer terms to news publications.

There have been calls for Facebook and Google to give a larger share of their advertising revenue to media organisations whose content they use.

According to the CMA, last year about 80 per cent of the £14bn spent on digital advertising went to Google and Facebook.

Newspapers are dependent on the online giants for traffic, with about 40 per cent of visits to their sites coming via Facebook and Google.

Google reacted by saying it wanted to “work constructively” with the new regulator.

Facebook is preparing to launch its Facebook News service in the UK, which works with news media and includes original ­reporting.

It said it remained “committed to working with our UK industry partners to find ways to support journalism and help the long-term sustainability of news ­organisations”.

AFP