UK’s competition authority asks for views on breaking up Google and Facebook

The U.K. Competition and Market Authority (CMA) has published an Interim Report on Online Platforms and Digital Advertising and opened up a consultation on a range of potential inventions such as breaking up platform giants, limiting their ability to set self-serving defaults and enforcing data sharing, or featuring interoperability to help rivals compete. According to CNBC, CMA found that Google earned more than 90% of the revenues in search-based advertising in the country, totaling about £6 billion ($7.8 billion), while Facebook accounted for nearly half of all online “display” ad revenues, raking in over £2 billion. This means that their dominance in the market causes “lack of real competition” and needs to be addressed.