The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is the federal agency that enforces competition and consumer protection law in Australia. Known by its initials, the ACCC is an independent statutory authority inside the Treasury portfolio, administering the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 and the Australian Consumer Law that sits as Schedule 2 of that Act. For advertising the agency matters twice over. It has spent longer than almost any other regulator dissecting how money moves through the ad tech supply chain, and it takes marketers to court when pricing claims, countdown timers, testimonials or subscription flows mislead the people who see them.

How the commission works

A chair, deputy chairs and commissioners are appointed with the participation of the Commonwealth and of state and territory governments, which makes the membership harder to reshape than a single ministerial appointment would be. Gina Cass-Gottlieb began a five-year term as chair on 21 March 2022, succeeding Rod Sims, chair since 2011. A Digital Platforms Branch monitors platform markets.

One feature separates the ACCC from regulators that fine companies directly: for most contraventions it cannot set a penalty. It investigates, then files proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia, which decides liability and the amount. Australian outcomes arrive as court orders rather than administrative decisions, and they take years.

The toolkit around litigation is broader. Section 155 notices compel companies to produce documents and answer questions. Section 87B allows the commission to accept court-enforceable undertakings, which convert a promise into a contempt risk. Infringement notices handle smaller matters at fixed amounts: Hismile paid A$138,600 across seven notices over videos featuring staff presented as shoppers.

Penalty levels have climbed steeply. Maximum civil penalties for companies rose on 10 November 2022 from A$10 million to the greatest of A$50 million, three times the benefit obtained, or 30 per cent of adjusted turnover during the breach period. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Doubling Penalties for ACCC Enforcement) Act 2026, passed on 26 March 2026, lifted the fixed limb to A$100 million for conduct from 28 March 2026.

Origin and evolution

The agency was established on 6 November 1995 by merging the Trade Practices Commission with the Prices Surveillance Authority. Its founding statute, the Trade Practices Act 1974, became the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 on 1 January 2011, the date the Australian Consumer Law replaced a patchwork of state and federal statutes with a single text.

Digital platforms entered the workload on 4 December 2017, when then Treasurer Scott Morrison directed the ACCC to examine the effect of search engines, social media and content aggregators on media and advertising markets. The Digital Platforms Inquiry issued a preliminary report on 10 December 2018 and a final report on 26 July 2019 carrying 23 recommendations. Two shaped everything that followed: a standing branch to watch platform markets, and a dedicated inquiry into ad tech and advertising agencies.

The ad tech inquiry

That second recommendation became a ministerial direction on 10 February 2020. The Digital Advertising Services Inquiry opened with an issues paper that March, produced an interim report in January 2021 and delivered its 198-page final report on 28 September 2021.

Scope was deliberately narrow. Search and classified advertising were excluded. The subject was display advertising traded through open channels, across four service layers: advertiser ad servers, demand-side platforms, supply-side platforms and publisher ad servers. Australian display advertising was generating around A$3.4 billion a year when the inquiry began, with open display accounting for roughly A$2.8 billion in 2020.

The findings were blunt. More than 90 per cent of ad impressions traded through the supply chain in 2020 passed through at least one Google service, and Google's share of revenue or ads traded ran from 50 to 60 per cent at the low end to between 90 and 100 per cent depending on the layer. At least 27 per cent of advertiser spend on ads sold through the chain was retained by intermediaries rather than reaching publishers, a figure presented as a floor rather than a full accounting.

Six recommendations followed. Google should describe publicly how it uses first-party data in ad tech, and give publishers more information about how its publisher ad server auctions operate. The ACCC should receive powers to write sector-specific rules for providers meeting market power or strategic position thresholds, including rules on data advantage. Industry should set standards requiring providers to publish average fees and take rates, and to permit independent verification of demand-side platform services. If voluntary standards failed to arrive within a reasonable period, the report said, mandatory rules should follow.

From inquiry to proposed regime

Running alongside was the five-year Digital Platform Services Inquiry, reporting every six months. Its ninth interim report, in December 2024, found Google Search holding 94 per cent of the Australian market as of August 2024, unchanged since September 2021, with Bing at 4.7 per cent.

The inquiry closed on 31 March 2025 with 35 recommendations across 14 reports, restating concerns about self-preferencing in advertising auctions and pricing opacity. An accompanying survey found 72 per cent of Australians had met potentially unfair marketplace practices in twelve months, and a December 2025 snapshot warned about agentic systems and fake reviews.

Treasury consulted on an ex ante digital competition regime between 2 December 2024 and 14 February 2025, naming app marketplaces and ad tech services as the first candidates for designation, with penalties aligned to the Competition and Consumer Act maximums. As of September 2026 the legislation has not been introduced, leaving the 2021 ad tech recommendations unimplemented five years on.

Why it matters for the marketing community

Most Australian marketers meet the ACCC through consumer law rather than competition law. Section 18 of the Australian Consumer Law prohibits misleading or deceptive conduct, section 29 covers false representations about price, sponsorship and affiliation, and section 34 covers conduct liable to mislead about a service. Those provisions reach every advertisement, landing page, chat widget and renewal email.

The record shows what that means. Emma Sleep was ordered to pay A$15 million over countdown timers that reset and strikethrough prices across 74 products. JustAnswer was taken to court in September 2025 over an advertised A$2 joining fee that preceded monthly charges of A$50 to A$90, and paid A$10 million in July 2026. Microsoft faces proceedings filed on 27 October 2025 alleging 2.7 million Australians were not told a lower-priced Classic tier existed when Copilot was folded into Microsoft 365, and eHarmony was found in August 2026 to have breached the same law over renewal pricing. Seasonal campaigns draw scrutiny too, as in the Black Friday advertising sweep of November 2025.

Media owners feel the effect differently. The News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code, enacted in 2021 on the back of a Digital Platforms Inquiry recommendation, made Australia the first country to legislate platform payments for news. Its charge-and-offset successor, the News Bargaining Incentive, went to consultation on 28 April 2026covering parent entities with Australian revenue above A$250 million.

Limitations and disputes

The gap between recommendation and law is the persistent criticism. Six ad tech recommendations produced no binding transparency rules, no published take rates and no verification standard for demand-side platforms. The regime meant to carry them remains a consultation paper.

Penalty scale is contested from both directions. Google was ordered to pay A$55 million on 2 December 2025 over understandings with Telstra and Optus that made Google Search the exclusive pre-installed option on Android handsets between December 2019 and March 2021, a sum the company jointly proposed with the regulator after admitting liability. Proceedings had been filed on 18 August 2025 alongside a section 87B undertaking removing the restrictions. The conduct had ended years earlier, though the commission secured admissions and contractual change without prolonged litigation.

The designation model draws separate objections. Economist Chris Berg has argued the proposal leaves substantive rulemaking to subordinate legislation, with the detail settled after Parliament approves the frame. IAB Australia accepted the transparency principle while cautioning against measures that add cost and friction without improving outcomes.

Jurisdiction has limits too. When consumer group CHOICE flagged unsafe marketplace listings, the ACCC agreed with the substance but declined enforcement, pointing to a Treasury law reform process because current law does not clearly assign responsibility when a seller sits overseas and the marketplace is not the supplier.

Not the same as

ACMA, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, regulates broadcasting, telecommunications and online content. OAIC, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, handles the Privacy Act, which governs the data behind targeting. ASIC polices financial services advertising. Ad Standards rules on advertising content complaints under the AANA codes as an industry body, with no government status and no penalties. State and territory fair trading agencies enforce the same Australian Consumer Law text alongside the ACCC.

Recent developments

A mandatory and suspensory merger regime replaced voluntary informal clearance on 1 January 2026. Priorities announced on 19 February 2026 named subscription traps, dark patterns and misleading pricing as focus areas.

Platform cases have multiplied since. The commission was granted leave on 21 April 2026 to intervene in Epic Games v Apple on relief issues of public interest, and sued Amazon on 29 May 2026 over button battery warnings on products held in its fulfilment network, the first such action against an online marketplace. A month later it filed against Amazon over five contract terms used to introduce advertising into Prime Video from 2 July 2024, affecting more than 850,000 annual subscribers who had already paid, with ad-free viewing costing an extra A$2.99 a month. The case tests the unfair contract terms penalties in force since 9 November 2023.

Timeline

  • 6 November 1995: ACCC established by merging the Trade Practices Commission and the Prices Surveillance Authority
  • 1 January 2011: Trade Practices Act 1974 becomes the Competition and Consumer Act 2010; Australian Consumer Law commences
  • 4 December 2017: Treasurer directs the ACCC to conduct the Digital Platforms Inquiry
  • 26 July 2019: Digital Platforms Inquiry final report published with 23 recommendations
  • 10 February 2020: Ministerial direction launches the Digital Advertising Services Inquiry
  • January 2021: Ad tech interim report finds fees equal to 28 per cent of display advertising expenditure in 2019
  • 3 March 2021: News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code commences
  • 28 September 2021: Ad tech final report published with six recommendations
  • 21 March 2022: Gina Cass-Gottlieb begins a five-year term as chair
  • 10 November 2022: Maximum civil penalties rise to A$50 million, three times benefit, or 30 per cent of adjusted turnover
  • 9 November 2023: Strengthened unfair contract terms penalties take effect
  • 2 December 2024: Treasury opens consultation on a digital competition regime
  • December 2024: Ninth interim report records 94 per cent Google search share in Australia
  • 31 March 2025: Digital Platform Services Inquiry concludes with 35 recommendations
  • 18 August 2025: Proceedings filed against Google Asia Pacific over Android search agreements
  • 2 December 2025: Federal Court imposes a A$55 million penalty on Google Asia Pacific
  • 1 January 2026: Mandatory and suspensory merger regime takes effect
  • 19 February 2026: 2026-27 compliance and enforcement priorities announced
  • 26 March 2026: Doubling Penalties Act passed, raising the fixed penalty limb to A$100 million
  • 29 June 2026: Federal Court proceedings filed against Amazon over Prime Video advertising

Summary

Who: The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, an independent statutory authority in the Treasury portfolio, chaired by Gina Cass-Gottlieb since March 2022. Its work reaches advertisers, publishers, ad tech providers, marketplaces and platform operators trading in Australia.

What: Enforcement of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 and the Australian Consumer Law, plus market inquiries. Cases are brought in the Federal Court, which sets penalties reaching the greatest of A$100 million, three times the benefit, or 30 per cent of adjusted turnover for conduct from 28 March 2026.

When: Established 6 November 1995. Digital platform work began in December 2017, produced the ad tech final report in September 2021 and closed the Digital Platform Services Inquiry in March 2025.

Where: Australia, with jurisdiction over conduct affecting Australian consumers and businesses regardless of where a company is incorporated, as cases against Microsoft, Amazon and JustAnswer show.

Why: Australian competition and consumer law applied to digital advertising has, in the commission's assessment, failed to correct concentration and opacity in the ad tech supply chain, leaving inquiry findings as the evidence base for a proposed ex ante regime that has yet to reach Parliament.