Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has released a preliminary report into Digital Platforms Inquiry i.e. Google, Facebook and Australian news and advertising.

The Report contains 11 recommendations and eight areas for further analysis as inquiry continues.

ACCC has concluded that Google and Facebook have substantial market power in online search, search advertising and news referral, and in markets for social media, display advertising and online news referral respectively.

The Report outlines ACCC's concerns of market power of these key platforms, their impact on Australian businesses and on ability of media businesses to monetise their content and extent to which consumers’ data is collected and used to enable targeted advertising.

In December 2017, Australian Govt. directed ACCC to undertake a public inquiry into impact of digital platforms on competition in media and advertising services markets, and in supply of news and journalistic content.

ACCC will provide a final report to Govt. by mid-2019. 

For more: https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/ACCC%20Digital%20Platforms%20Inquiry%20-%20Preliminary%20Report.pdf