The news: The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) proposed giving Google a “special market status” for its dominance in search and search marketing, which would open the company up to even more regulation and oversight.

The CMA’s blog post on its investigation reads like a roll call of criticisms of Google’s market power.

• CMA chief Sarah Cardell listed Google’s overwhelming search dominance (Google accounts for more than 90% of UK searches), unclear ranking practices, implementation of AI overviews, high ad costs, and a lack of controls for publishers to safeguard their content as chief concerns the regulator is looking closely at.
• “The amount spent by UK business entities for search advertising on Google last year was equivalent to more than £33,000 ($25,826) per advertiser,” Cardell wrote. “If competition was working well, we would expect these costs to be lower.”

Google called the CMA’s statements “broad and unfocused” and said it could lead the company to withhold certain features or products in the UK.

The CMA will finalize its decision in October.

Coming at the king: A growing list of legal woes threatens Google’s search dominance and ad empire. Two separate US rulings in the last year determined that Google operates monopolies, opening the possibility for dramatic regulatory action: a forced sale of leading browser Chrome, a ban on deals to be the default search engine on platforms like iOS, or sales of its ad tech subsidiaries.