South Africa: 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.