The competition watchdog has proposed sweeping reforms to control the market power of digital giants like Facebook and Google, including a new ombudsman to investigate complaints by consumers, media companies and marketers, and measures to monitor the prices they charge for advertising.
Global social media and search companies could be required to tell the regulator about local business acquisitions in advance, and submit themselves to third-party measuring of advertisements, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has recommended in a preliminary report released publicly on Monday.
The report also recommends companies such as Apple and Google provide customers with “options” for internet browsers and search engines on devices rather than providing a pre-selected default.
The suggestions come after a year-long investigation by the ACCC into the digital platforms’ impact on advertising revenues and news publishers, the distribution of fake news and the public’s understanding of how their data is used.