CCI fines Google Rs 1,338 crore for unfair practices

NEW DELHI: The Competition Commission of India has fined Google Rs 1,338 crore for abusing its dominant position in relation to Android mobile devices, and ordered the company to immediately “cease and desist” from such practices. The CCI said Google forced one-sided agreements on the tech ecosystem, ensuring continued supply of consumer data for its apps to garner advertising revenue, while blocking others. It said the policies were adversely impacting the business of smartphone makers, competing app creators, a myriad startups, and users.
The investigation into the matter, which was ordered in April 2019, had seen a probe panel of CCI not just question Google but several multinational and Indian companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Paytm, PhonePe, Mozilla, Samsung, Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and Karbonn. Google is the leader of the dominant Android operating system (OS) with nearly 98% share of the smartphone market.
CCI said Google’s anti-competitive activities were achieved through various one-sided agreements that it forced on the tech eco-system, virtually ensuring continued supply of consumer data for its apps to help garner lucrative advertising revenues, while blocking access to others.

“By virtue of the agreements… Google ensured that users continue to use its search services on mobile devices, which facilitated un-interrupted growth of advertisement revenue for Google. It also helped Google to further invest and improve its services to exclusion of others. Thus, underlying objective of Google in imposing various restrictions… was to protect and strengthen its dominant position in general search services and thus, its revenues via search advertisements,” CCI said.
When contacted, a spokesperson for Google did not comment on the development.