Google’s £2 billion American tech takeover probed by British competition watchdog

The UK competition regulator today took the unusual step of wading into a US tech merger.

Over the summer US tech giant Google agreed to buy analytics firm Looker for £2 billion as part of its efforts to expand its cloud data offerings.

But the Competition and Markets Authority believes the merger could “substantially” reduce competition in the UK’s cloud computing market.

Looker has a number of UK customers, including the Economist, and the fear is Google, already big in the UK cloud data market, will extend its reach. The competition watchdog has invited comments from “any interested party” on the merger by December 20 as it carries out its assessment.

Google wants to use the deal to build upon its BigQuery tool, used for managing large datasets. Looker uses a visualisation tool that helps clients spot patterns in data.

The deal was given the thumbs-up by US regulatory authorities. A spokeswoman for the CMA said: “We are not bound by findings of other authorities.”