South Africa: Competition authority opens consultation into Online Intermediation Platforms Market Inquiry

On 13 July 2022, the South African Competition Authority published its provisional report on the "Online Intermediation Platforms Market Inquiry" and opened a consultation on it. The consultation will be open until 23 August 2022. The inquiry 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.