The ninth report of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) 5-year inquiry into digital platform services will revisit competition and consumer issues in relation to general search services in Australia.

The ACCC previously examined the provision of general search services in its third interim report in 2021, as well as the Digital Platforms Inquiry (DPI) final report in 2019. In both reports, the ACCC found Google Search to be the dominant search engine in Australia and that Google’s pre-installation and default arrangements have likely contributed to its current dominance.

Since then, general search services have been affected by numerous regulatory and industry developments. For example, legislation regulating such services has been introduced in a number of jurisdictions; including the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which requires designated digital platforms to provide choice screens for browsers and search engines and measures to address anti-competitive self-preferencing. In addition, changes to the market structure and the emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) as a way for consumers to search for information is claimed to have impacted general search services in a significant way. Given this, the ACCC considers that it is now timely to re-examine the provision of general search services in Australia.

The purpose of this paper is to invite written submissions from interested parties to assist the ACCC in understanding the current nature of general search services, how market dynamics have changed since the third interim report, and how these changes may impact competition and consumer issues or give rise to new concerns.

Submissions close 17 April 2024.