Rishi Sunak has vowed to tackle the dominance of tech giants such as Facebook and Google by ensuring they pay a fair rate of tax and do not abuse their market position to squash rivals. Among the options is an ‘online sales tax’ targeting the explosion in internet shopping triggered by the crisis, which has benefited companies such as Amazon at the expense of traditional high street stores. Mr Sunak is studying a review by Tory MP John Penrose of the laws meant to prevent big businesses becoming monopolies that can dictate prices and smother rivals. Facebook has around half of the entire market for display advertising, worth around £5 billion a year. The CMA found last year that Google and Facebook were able to demand inflated prices for adverts, pushing costs to suppliers that were passed on as higher prices.

Source: Daily Mail March 06, 2021 22:25 UTC