The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has been investigating the anticipated purchase of Outbrain by Taboola. Both companies supply, amongst other things, content recommendation services to publishers, including major UK news sites.

Content recommendation is a type of digital advertising where readers visiting publishers’ sites are shown other content they might be interested in, often based on personalisation algorithms. When a reader clicks on a content recommendation advert, the publisher receives a share of the revenue generated. This type of advertising is one of the ways publishers make money from their web pages.

Taboola and Outbrain are the 2 largest providers of content recommendation services to publishers in the UK, with a combined market share of over 80%. They supply very similar services and are each other’s main competitor. In particular, the companies’ internal documents and information received from publishers showed the strong competition between the companies.

If the merger were to go ahead, the CMA is concerned that publishers in the UK will have a reduced choice of supplier for content recommendation services. This could result in a worsening of terms for publishers and a reduction in their share of advertising revenue. A large proportion of the publishers contacted by the CMA were concerned about the impact of the deal if it goes ahead.

Joel Bamford, CMA Senior Director of Mergers said:

Online advertising, including content recommendation, is a really important revenue stream for publishers, including news websites. Our merger investigation has found that the current competition between Taboola and Outbrain means publishers can negotiate better revenue share deals and contract terms. If the companies were to merge, this competition in content recommendation would be reduced, and publishers could lose out.

If the merging businesses are unable to offer remedies which address the CMA’s concerns, the deal will be referred for an in-depth Phase 2 investigation.

For more information, visit the Taboola / Outbrain merger case page.

For media queries, contact the CMA press team on 020 3738 6460 or press@cma.gov.uk.

HM Land Registry’s digital Local Land Charges Register continues to grow, enabling the digital transformation of homebuying.

From today (Friday 26 June), anyone requiring local land charges (LLC) searches in the local authority area of East Lindsey District Council will need to get them from HM Land Registry rather than going directly to the council.

Jade Dicrosta, Senior Local Land Charges Officer at East Lindsey District Council, said:

Most of our local land charges data was held in paper and digital formats. With HM Land Registry’s support, we were able to update and enhance over 70,000 local land charges before migrating the data to the central online LLC Register, despite the challenges of lockdown. We are pleased to have completed this migration while working remotely thanks to the fantastic efforts of both East Lindsey and HM Land Registry staff.

East Lindsey District Council is proud to be helping our citizens by improving the home buying process across our district at such a crucial time.

Karina Singh, Director of Transformation at HM Land Registry, said:

In migrating East Lindsey’s local land charges to the national register during this lockdown period, we have underlined our commitment to delivering this pioneering digital service. I’m proud that our successful collaboration has resulted in local land charges search results being instantly available in the East Lindsey area, which will help the recovery of the local property market.

Local land charges searches are normally required in the property-buying process. Most local land charges are restrictions or prohibitions on the use of the property such as planning permissions or listed buildings. The local land charges search will reveal whether a property is subject to a charge which then informs a buyer’s decision to buy a property or parcel of land.

HM Land Registry is working in partnership with a number of local authorities in England to migrate their Local Land Charges data to a central, digital register as part of a phased approach. Once migrated, anyone will be able to get instant online search results via GOV.UK using the Search for Local Land Charges service.

HM Land Registry’s business customers can use their existing portal and Business Gateway channels or their usual search providers to access Local Land Charges data for those local authorities which have migrated.

Customers will need to continue to submit CON29 enquiries to the local authority.

Watch our short video for an overview of the service.

For more information, read about the Local Land Charges Programme.