The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) last week submitted a request to Google, to which the company declined to respond. The request asked the well-known browserto effectively end its monopoly and offer Android users in Australia another search engine choice, as is the case in Europe.
The ACCC said Google has long established its position in the search and advertising services market. The commission's demand was that if the company does not provide choices for Android by January 26, 2020, it will be forced to do so by the government.
Google said in a blog post on Sunday that its advertising platforms help publishers increase their online revenue and drive additional traffic to their sites. The company also said that in 2018, more than 2 billion free clicks were made on Australian sites , boosting subscriptions and ad revenue.
One of the issues raised by the ACCC is the lack of transparency in online advertising markets, saying it is unclear how Google and Facebook rank and serve ads. And that it is this lack of transparency that makes it difficult for advertisers to understand the factors that influence the display of an ad to consumers and to determine whether Google or Facebook are favouring their own business interests.
The ACCC also requires digital platforms to provide codes of conduct governing relationships between platforms and media companies to the Australian Communications and Multimedia Authority (ACMA).
In relation to fake news, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said that it is unwise to rely on Google and Facebook to monitor it, since both rely on advertising.
ACMA's involvement will be to ensure that platforms comply with internal requirements.
Google, on its personal blog, stated that it operates with the protection of users' privacy in mind and emphasized that it believes in people's control, choice and transparency. In addition, it pointed to its privacy policy to explain what information it collects, why it collects it and how users can control, update, manage, export and delete their information.
The fact is, if Google doesn't offer Android consumers another search engine choice within six months, the ACCC will ask the government to require it.
