Australia to scrutinize Google, Facebook activities

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to lift the facade of the search engines and social media sites to protect the confidentiality of its customers.

Sydney: Australia would form a dedicated department to keep an eye on Facebook and Google as part of reforms to protect the privacy of consumers and ensure antitrust laws are respected in the country.

This comes in context to control the market dominance of the technology giants and their activities were recommended by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the antitrust watchdog for protection of consumer rights and rein in illegal anti-competitive behaviour.

Among another measure, the watchdog has recommended the establishment of a special branch of the ACCC to pro-actively monitor and investigate potentially anti-competitive conduct by digital platforms.

The tech companies have a stronghold in the market and also a powerful influence over the people through the collection of personal data.

The ACCC has released its final report along with 23 recommendations regarding the impact of digital search engines and social media platforms in the media and advertising services markets.

The study was commissioned by the government in 2017.

The government has focused on the fact that these companies have a large amount of personal information about their consumers who need to be informed about the data collected as well as by whom and how it is being used.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has focused on the need to develop a media regulatory framework assure that market power is not used to lessen competition in media and advertising services markets.

In a statement ACCC chair Rod Sims said that the recommendations were "comprehensive and forward-looking and deal with the many competition, consumer, privacy and news media issues we have identified throughout this inquiry".

However, Sunita Bose, Managing Director of Digital Industry Group, which represents Google, Facebook and Twitter, urged caution to the government.