Ministers launch a crackdown on Google, Facebook and Amazon to curb dominance online

Ministers have launched a crackdown on Google, Facebook and Amazon to curb the US technology giants’ dominance online.

Official documents reveal that a new Digital Markets Taskforce has been set up and will spend the next six months drawing up a list of measures to boost competition.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the Government wants to implement all of the recommendations made by Harvard economist Jason Furman, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, in a review he carried out last year.

That could see America’s tech giants forced to follow a new code of conduct that stops them stifling competition in the UK.

The rules will be designed to prevent powerful US firms from distorting the digital advertising market by imposing terms which result in higher prices being passed on to consumers.

The Furman Review last year recommended that big internet firms reveal sensitive data about their business operations to help their rivals grow larger and provide stiffer competition.

They could also be blocked from swallowing up small British firms, with the UK competition watchdog in line to be handed new powers to intervene in takeover attempts.

The Furman Review revealed that big American internet companies had made 400 acquisitions over the course of a decade.

This ‘killer’ strategy of buying up smaller businesses that challenged their dominance had ended up extinguishing competition, the review concluded.

It identified five companies – Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft – which effectively dominated their respective digital markets.

In a document published quietly online last week as Chancellor Rishi Sunak read out his Budget speech, the Government said ‘timely action’ was needed because the digital markets were ‘fast-moving’ and failure to act would lead to ‘consumers ultimately suffering’.

The new taskforce will comprise a crack team of experts from several regulators including the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA), internet watchdog Ofcom and the Information Commissioner’s Office.

The team will be part of the CMA, which will appoint one of its ‘senior officials’ to run the project.

After the taskforce reports back in September, the Government will set out details of how laws could be introduced or changed.

The document published last week added: ‘The Government will make final decisions on what proposals to take forward. 

‘This includes where any additional functions and associated powers to manage market power and to promote competition in digital platform markets should ultimately sit.’

Last night, company bosses welcomed the crackdown.

Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BRIT Awards and record industry trade body the British Phonographic Industry, said: ‘The Government’s decision to accept all of the Furman Review recommendations for unlocking competition in digital markets could also ensure that platforms are held more accountable, which we welcome.’

The new crackdown is separate to an ongoing CMA market study into the digital giants. 

The Mail on Sunday last week revealed that senior figures at the competition watchdog were still pushing for a full-blown probe into Google and Facebook’s stranglehold of the digital advertising market. 

If the CMA, which is led by former Tory MP Lord Tyrie, goes ahead with the full probe, it might even see Google and Facebook broken up.

The CMA is due to publish its final report by July 2.