- What’s happening: Australia is introducing an ex ante competition regime to curb the market power of major digital platforms like Google, Meta, and Apple.
- Why it matters: The framework shifts Australia’s approach from punishing misconduct to preventing it, aligning with reforms in Europe and the UK.
- What’s next: Legislation is expected later this year or early 2026, with the ACCC set to designate and monitor dominant platforms.
For nearly a decade, Australian regulators have documented how a handful of global platforms exercise outsized control over the nation’s digital economy. Now they intend to do something about it.
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones announced last December that Australia will introduce an ex ante competition regime targeting dominant digital platforms. Unlike traditional competition law, which punishes bad behaviour after the fact, the new framework sets rules upfront. Platforms that meet designation criteria will face conduct requirements designed to prevent self-preferencing, lock-in, and other practices that stifle competition.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) will gain powers to designate platforms, monitor compliance, and enforce obligations. Penalties are substantial: up to AUD$50 million, three times the benefit gained, or 30% of turnover during the breach period – whichever is greatest. App marketplaces and advertising technology will be first in line and social media may follow.
Australia is playing fast follower, learning from Europe and Britain while adapting to local conditions.
Treasury closed consultation on 14 February. Legislation is expected either this year or early 2026. Australia, in Treasury’s framing, is playing “fast follower”, learning from Europe’s Digital Markets Act and Britain’s recent competition reforms while adapting the approach to local conditions.
The case builds slowly, then all at once
The proposal did not appear from nowhere. Between 2017 and 2025, the ACCC conducted three sequential inquiries into digital platforms, publishing 14 reports and 35 recommendations. The work began with a broad Digital Platforms Inquiry in 2017, narrowed to advertising technology in 2020, then expanded again to cover platform services more generally.
The pattern that emerged was consistent. A small number of global firms – Google, Meta, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft – dominate the infrastructure of digital commerce. They control search, app distribution, social media, and advertising technology. Network effects make their services more valuable as more people use them, creating winner-takes-all dynamics. Data advantages compound over time. Platforms operate across multiple interconnected markets, leveraging strength in one to gain footholds in others.
Traditional competition enforcement struggles with this. Cases take years. By the time a regulator proves harm and secures a remedy, the market has moved on. Competitors have exited. Users have adapted. The conduct that triggered the investigation has evolved into something new.
The ACCC’s final report, published in June, made the argument explicit: retrospective enforcement cannot keep pace with digital markets. Prevention, not punishment, is the appropriate regulatory response.
Who gets designated, and how
The regime is targeted, not universal. Only platforms that clear certain thresholds face obligations. Either the Minister or the ACCC can trigger an investigation. The ACCC then has six months to assess whether a platform meets the criteria.
The thresholds themselves remain to be finalised, but Treasury has signalled they will track European and British precedents. The EU requires €7.5 billion in annual turnover across the European Economic Area and 45 million monthly active users. Britain uses £25 billion in global turnover or £1 billion domestically. Australia’s figures will likely land somewhere in that range, adjusted for market size.
Numbers alone won’t determine designation. Treasury’s proposal paper emphasises quantitative thresholds but leaves room for qualitative judgement. The ACCC will consider market power, the platform’s role as a critical intermediary, and whether its conduct could harm competition. Still, the message is clear: if you don’t meet the revenue or user thresholds, designation is unlikely.
Once designated, platforms face obligations for five years. They can be renewed. Designation decisions will be reviewable, though whether that means a full merits review or a narrower judicial review is still being worked out.
What platforms will have to do – and not do
The obligations come in two layers. Broad prohibitions will sit in primary legislation, applying to all designated platforms regardless of what service they offer. No self-preferencing: platforms can’t systematically favour their own products over competitors’. No tying: they can’t make use of one service conditional on adopting another. No artificial switching barriers: interface design can’t be weaponised to keep users locked in.
Platforms will also face transparency requirements, having to disclose how algorithms work, how data is used, and how decisions get made. Fair dealing provisions will prevent take-it-or-leave-it terms imposed on smaller business users. Interoperability obligations will require platforms to enable data portability and access, making it easier for users to move between services.
The second layer gets more specific. Subordinate legislation will impose detailed requirements tailored to particular services. For app marketplaces, that might mean allowing developers to use their own payment systems instead of the platform’s. It could prohibit platforms from mining competitor data to build copycat apps. It might require clear, timely explanations when apps are rejected from stores.
For advertising technology, the focus shifts to transparency in ad placement, access to performance data, and fair treatment across the supply chain. The specifics matter less than the principle: each service gets bespoke rules designed to address the competitive harms most likely to arise in that context.
Enforcement, with teeth
The ACCC won’t wait for complaints. It will monitor designated platforms proactively, with powers to compel documents, conduct inquiries, and investigate suspected breaches. If the regulator finds non-compliance and the penalty calls for a portion of turnover during the breach period, it’s a value that scales with the size of the violation and the size of the firm.
Treasury is considering whether the ACCC should also have power to issue infringement notices for less serious contraventions. That would allow faster, lower-cost enforcement for technical breaches that don’t warrant Federal Court proceedings.
What the regime won’t include, at least initially, is structural remedies. The ACCC can’t force platforms to divest assets or break up business units. Treasury is consulting on whether to add that power later, potentially applying structural remedies adopted in Europe or Britain to Australian-designated platforms. For now, the focus is conduct, not structure.
The platforms push back
American technology firms are not pleased. Multiple U.S. industry associations have submitted detailed objections during consultation. The Computer & Communications Industry Association argues the designation criteria are too vague, creating regulatory unpredictability. The Chamber of Progress emphasises that digital markets remain competitive and dynamic, questioning whether intervention is needed. The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation warns that Australia risks chilling innovation and deterring investment.
Amazon Australia put its name to a submission calling the regime an innovation killer. The argument: existing competition law already has the tools needed. The ACCC just hasn’t used them vigorously enough. Why create a new framework when the old one hasn’t been properly tested?
The Law Council of Australia took a more measured view but raised a significant concern: too much crucial detail will be left to subordinate legislation. That means regulations, not Acts of Parliament. Less scrutiny. Less transparency. More regulatory discretion. For lawyers advising clients on compliance, that creates uncertainty. For platforms deciding where to invest, it creates risk.
Academic critics, including scholars from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) and the International Center for Law & Economics, argue that ex ante regulation solves yesterday’s problems while creating tomorrow’s. Yes, some platforms are large and powerful. But markets change. New entrants emerge. Prescriptive rules designed for current business models may entrench incumbents rather than dislodging them. The cure, they suggest, might be worse than the disease.
Learning from abroad
Australia is hardly alone. The European Union’s Digital Markets Act came into full effect in March 2024, designating six “gatekeepers” and imposing detailed conduct requirements. Britain’s Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act launched last January, with the Competition and Markets Authority already investigating Google and Apple. Germany has operated a national regime since January 2021. Japan adopted a transparency-focused co-regulation model in early 2021. India is developing its own ex ante framework.
The challenge for Australia is deciding how much to copy and how much to adapt. Europe’s approach is prescriptive: detailed rules that apply to all designated gatekeepers. Britain’s is bespoke: the regulator tailors requirements to each firm based on specific competition concerns. Australia appears to be splitting the difference – broad obligations in legislation, service-specific details in regulations.
Treasury’s “fast follower” framing suggests the government believes it can learn from overseas mistakes without repeating them. Whether that confidence is justified depends on implementation. Europe’s experience has been contentious, with platforms arguing that compliance reduces functionality and harms users. Britain’s regime is too new to judge. Australia will need to watch both closely.
Coordination matters. The ACCC will need to work closely with European, British, and other regulators to avoid inconsistent requirements that create compliance nightmares for platforms operating across jurisdictions. The Digital Platform Regulators Forum – which brings together the ACCC, communications regulator, eSafety Commissioner, and privacy commissioner – provides domestic coordination. The harder task is aligning internationally.
What it means for regulators
For the ACCC, this represents both an expansion of authority and a test of capability. The regulator will need technical expertise to assess complex platform economics, algorithmic systems, and multi-sided market dynamics. It will need staff with skills that blend competition law, technology, and data analysis. Proactive monitoring is more resource-intensive than reactive enforcement. The budget implications are non-trivial.
Other regulators should watch closely. The regime provides a case study in ex ante frameworks – their promise, their pitfalls, and their political economy. It demonstrates how multiple regulators with overlapping mandates can coordinate through forums like the Digital Platform Regulators Forum. And it shows what happens when a mid-sized jurisdiction tries to regulate global platforms whose home governments view digital dominance as strategic advantage.
The next 18 months will clarify whether Australia’s approach works. Legislation is on the horizon. Designation investigations will follow. Platforms will have time to adjust their conduct before obligations take effect. And early enforcement decisions will set precedents that shape compliance behaviour across the sector.
The fundamental question remains unresolved: can prescriptive ex ante rules promote competition without stifling the innovation that made these platforms dominant in the first place? Australia is about to find out. So is everyone watching from the sidelines.
