Foreword

Increasingly, Australians are spending a greater proportion of their time in the digital world as online services and products prove invaluable for people and businesses alike. Digital markets are highly concentrated, often featuring only one or two dominant firms with significant market power. In search and adtech, this is Google; in app marketplaces, this is Apple and Google; in social media, this is Facebook (through both the Facebook and the Facebook-owned Instagram services). Australians spend almost 40% of their online time on services operated by Google and Facebook alone.1 In 2020, Google’s share of the market for general search was 95%,2 while over 70% of time spent by Australians on selected social media platforms was on Facebook.3