Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chair Rod Sims has called on Australia to "rise up" and work out the level of economic concentration it is willing to live with.
Speaking before the House of Representatives Economics Standing Committee on Friday, Sims said competition regulators around the world have faced criticism for allowing Google to consolidate its market position with the past purchases of Android, DoubleClick, and YouTube.
"There's been a lot of criticism of regulators around the world for allowing those acquisitions, but at the time they occurred, certainly our law, I believe, wouldn't have allowed us to stop them," he said.
"I guess what we're trying to get do with the debate is 'Can we just rise up a bit and just think about what regime we want, where we really want to set the dial to make sure that we don't end up with such a concentrated economy, as we clearly have now?'
"Because we agree, the economy is too concentrated -- when you look at it transaction by transaction, it's difficult."
Addressing the case launched by the US Department of Justice[1] (DoJ) this week against Google's alleged illegal monopoly in online search services, Sims said he thought "a bit of competition" would increase innovation, lower profit-seeking behaviour, and ultimately provide a better outcome for Australian consumers.
The ACCC also released the first of its six-monthly interim reports for its five-year Digital Services Inquiry, which focused on over-the-top messaging services.
The report[2] said Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are free from competitive restraints due to the size of the user base of each service, and the effort involved for users to switch to alternative services. An example of the effort is getting enough contacts onto an