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Description

Competition authority closes consultation into Online Intermediation Platforms Market Inquiry

On 23 August 2022, the South African Competition Authority closed the consultation on its provisional report on the "Online Intermediation Platforms Market Inquiry". The Authority will release a final version of the report in November 2022. The investigation delved into the main platforms used in South Africa around eCommerce, app stores, food delivery applications, and search engines. The aim of the investigation was to uncover all the variables contributing to the reduction of competitiveness in online markets. Firstly, the inquiry has identified the leading platforms in each business category. Secondly, the inquiry found that the Google Search engine distorts competition. Google is the main platform that leads users to reach businesses, but the fact that only paid-for results are prominently shown favours big companies. The competition authority finds that the paid-for results should be clearly labelled and there should be another results column that only shows results based on relevance to the users' searches. Moreover, search result positions should be created by specific units that do not favour Google's own products and services.

Original source

Scope

Policy Area
Competition
Policy Instrument
Unilateral conduct regulation
Regulated Economic Activity
platform intermediary: user-generated content, platform intermediary: e-commerce, other service provider, software provider: app stores, search service provider, platform intermediary: other
Implementation Level
national
Government Branch
executive
Government Body
competition authority

Complete timeline of this policy change

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2021-02-19
under deliberation

On 19 February 2021, the South African Competition Commission (CCSA) released the draft terms of re…

2021-05-19
under deliberation

The South African Competition Commission (CCSA) released a statement of issues of its inquiry into …

2021-08-17
in consultation

On 17 August 2021, the South African Competition Commission (CCSA) released a second statement of i…

2021-09-23
processing consultation

On 23 September, the consultation that was part of the second statement of issues released by the S…

2022-07-13
in consultation

On 13 July 2022, the South African Competition Authority published its provisional report on the "O…

2022-08-23
processing consultation

On 23 August 2022, the South African Competition Authority closed the consultation on its provision…

2023-05-19
under investigation

On 19 May 2023, the South African Competition Commission announced it had extended the period for c…

2023-07-31
concluded

On 31 July 2023, the South African Competition Commission published its final report on the Online …