By Muvija M and Paul Sandle LONDON (Reuters) -Britain designated Google as having strategic market status in online search on Friday, paving the way for 'proportionate, targeted' interventions in the first use of the country's new regulatory powers to tackle the dominance of Big Tech. The Competition and Markets Authority's move, which enables it to compel the U.S. company to change the way it operates, is not a finding of wrongdoing and does not introduce any immediate requirements, the regulator said. "We have found that Google maintains a strategic position in the search and search advertising sector – with more than 90% of searches in the UK taking place on its platform," the CMA's Executive Director for Digital Markets Will Hayter said. Competition regulators have long had Alphabet-owned Google in their sights. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into Google and Amazon's search advertising last month, while the U.S. Department of Justice wants to force Google to sell off some of its advertising technology tools. In response to the British action, Google's Senior Director for Competition Oliver Bethell said: "Many of the ideas for interventions that have been raised in this process would inhibit UK innovation and growth, potentially slowing product launches at a time of profound AI-based innovation." Google, which said last month it would invest 5 billion pounds ($6.65 billion) in Britain, hoped any outcome would reflect the CMA's goal "to ensure the UK's competition framework mirrors the best interests of UK consumers and businesses", he added. The CMA, which can impose fines for non-compliance and has direct enforcement powers, said the designation enabled it to consider proportionate, targeted interventions to ensure that general search services are "open to effective competition". It outlined in June, when it first proposed the designation, steps including fairer ranking in search and offering consumers more access to alternative search engines. The regulator said on Friday that while Google's Gemini AI assistant was not in the scope of the designation, the position would be kept under review given uncertainty over how the market was developing. Other AI-based search features, such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, were included in the designation, it added. ($1 = 0.7523 pounds) (Reporting by Paul Sandle and Muvija M; Editing by William James and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
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