Competition Commission Of India Imposed 936.44 Crore Fine On Google

The Indian watchdog Competition Commission of India (CCI) has imposed a monetary penalty of overall 1337.76 crores of Indian currency on Google for anti-competitive practices using the android mobile device for abusing monopoly through its app aggregator play store

The smartphones with which we all are well acquainted need an operating system to run applications and programs. One such operating system was acquired by Google in 2005 which is called Android. The CCI deeply examined various practices of Google in terms of licensing and proprietary mobile applications of Google like the Play Store, YouTube, etc.

The CCI observed that Google’s business was driven by increasing users in its platform so that they interact with its revenue earning like the online search affects the online advertising service of Google.

CCI further noticed that several embedded applications like the Playstore cannot be substituted effectively by any other application on the Android OS. Moreover, the Google tech giant is engaged with contracts with some regulatory agencies like the MADA(Mobile Application Distribution Agreement) and ACC(Android Compatibility Commitment Agreement ) These agreements provide Google an edge over the other competitors as MADA assures Google-based app widgets be pre installed in new Android devices and the ACC guarantees proper distribution channel for Google. CCI opined that these factors infringe on the other market players as the tech giant’s advertising services are embedded in all its app widgets which are universal in the Android ecosystem due to these reasons.

Google has perpetuated its dominant position in the online search market which has caused a denial of market access for competing apps this violated section 4(2) (e) of the CCI acts and several other dominant factors like the nonsubstitution of play Store and reckless ads on YouTube directing to Google Chrome Web browser have also been noted as violations of section 4 other subparts of the CCI act.

According to the business policies of Google, It is important to note that the android app developers cannot provide a link to make payment directing to another application or encouraging a user to do any purchase outside the app. If the other app developers do not comply with this policy they are not permitted to list their apps on the Playstore which will detach them from a large pool of the expected consumer base.

The monetary fund has been imposed by the CCI according to the data submitted by Google which was found to exhibit wide discrepancies hence in order to provide justice and ensure necessary market correction earliest the fine was necessary. Google has been given 39 days’ time to provide the required financial details and supporting documents. This is a major setback for this tech giant in one of its priority markets. Google claims to empower India’s digital transformation and improve the digital divide in the country, it will evaluate the decision of CCI.