by azalemeth | 2025-10-29 10:47:22+00:00
For what it is worth, I submitted a (totally, different, "handwritten", personal) complaint to the UK's CMA about this a few weeks ago, when it was first announced.

I received _the_ most boilerplate "Thanks, bog off" response imaginable, which I presume is a good thing...

Dear $NAME, Thank you for your correspondence. We value people contacting us with information. This helps us to tackle anti-competitive behaviour and protect people and businesses from being disadvantaged by unfair practices. What happens now? Our Digital Markets Team will now analyse your enquiry using our published prioritisation principles (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cma-prioritisation-principles). The Digital Markets Unit (DMU) will oversee a new regulatory regime, promoting greater competition and innovation in digital markets and protecting consumers and businesses from unfair practices. The CMA will continue to use its existing powers, where appropriate, to investigate harm to competition in digital markets. Please be aware that the CMA has no powers to take action or open a case on behalf of an individual customer or business (for example; to pursue compensation, refunds, or to intervene or adjudicate in disputes). We prioritise the cases that are most likely to make a real difference for people and the UK economy based on our available resources and the likelihood of a successful outcome. Can I get an update on my enquiry? We are unable to give you an update on your enquiry. We find all enquiries useful to inform our current and future work. However, we offer no guarantee as to where or how your enquiry may be used. We do publish details of our cases on our website. You can subscribe to email alerts which will inform you when new information has been added. Will the CMA investigate my enquiry? We review all the enquiries that we receive. This helps us to understand: whether different industries in the UK economy are competitive if competition law is being broken if shoppers or businesses are being disadvantaged. Even if we don’t immediately investigate your enquiry, it may lead to us taking further action in the future. Do I need to do anything else? You do not need to do anything. If we need further information, we will contact you. Thank you again for taking the time to contact us. Yours sincerely Carol Sampson (she/her) | Enquiries Admin Officer | Strategy, Communications and Advocacy | Competition and Markets Authority The Cabot | 25 Cabot Square | London | E14 4QZ

So, I naïvely think one way to push this higher up the priority list and get the UK's regulator to act at least would be to look at those prioritisation principles and make the point that it falls high up them. One of them is "The CMA’s work should ensure that competitive markets provide choice and variety and drive lower prices"; another is "the CMA’s actions should empower competitive, fair-dealing businesses to compete, including by addressing the behaviour of a small minority of businesses that try to harm consumers, restrict competition, or prevent markets from functioning properly".

It's pretty clear to me that Google's direction won't be going down this route, and in many ways I wish I knew about these before submitting my complaint. If you're reading this in the UK, consider looking at those guidance points and hamming home explicitly how this move by Google breaks those points – which, frankly, it clearly does (it is going to reduce choice and variety; it is also explicitly restricting competition and harming consumers!)