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Britain's competition regulator on Thursday launched an investigation into Apple and Google's massive mobile ecosystems to determine whether the tech giants are breaching tough new digital competition rules in the UK.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority said it is opening dual investigations into each of the US tech giants seeking to assess the position they hold in their mobile ecosystems, including smartphone-based operating systems, app stores and browsers.
The investigations will explore the impact on people who use mobile devices and the thousands of companies that develop innovative services or content such as apps for these devices. The Capital Markets Authority said.
The CMA now has enhanced regulatory powers after a new UK law, called the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Code, or DMCC, came into force at the start of this year.
DMCC seeks to prevent anti-competitive behavior in digital markets. It can classify large companies with a significant amount of market power in a particular digital activity as having “strategic market status.”
The CMA now has the power to impose changes to prevent potential anti-competitive behavior from any company granted strategic market status.
