LONDON – Britain’s competition watchdog said on Tuesday it was launching a formal antitrust investigation into Google’s search and search advertising services.

The UK Competition and Markets Authority said it is assessing whether Google has a “strategic market position” (SMS) under the new UK Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Act (DMCC).

DMCC is a law designed to prevent anti-competitive behavior in digital markets. Designating a company to own an “SMS” would give regulators the power to implement changes to prevent anti-competitive behaviour.

letterGoogle did not immediately comment when contacted by CNBC.

CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell said the regulator was investigating Google’s dominance of the search market to ensure a “level playing field” – especially as artificial intelligence is changing the way people search online Down.

“Our job is to ensure that people fully benefit from choice and innovation in search services and receive a fair deal, for example in how data is collected and stored,” Kader said.

“For businesses, whether you are a competing search engine, advertiser or news organization, we want to ensure a level playing field for all businesses, big and small, to succeed,” she added.

The move by the CMA follows a request from the US Department of Justice Force Google to divest its Chrome browser. The U.S. Department of Justice filed to break up the internet giant after finding it had a monopoly in the search market.

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