Antitrust Complaint Against Google

Context

An Indian start-up lobby group has filed a complaint with the Competition Commission of India (CCI) against Google’s alleged anti-competitive practices in the online advertising market.

About

• The Alliance of Digital India Foundation (ADIF), stated that Google’s dominance over important on-line platforms and its reliance on advertising and marketing for the majority of its revenue hinders opposition and negatively influences Indian companies.
• The improvement comes as India is presently discussing an exhaustive digital competition regulation, that could see elevated preemptive compliance at the a part of huge tech companies. 

Background

• In March this year, the Committee on Digital Competition Law (CDCL) published its record outlining the challenges related to anti-aggressive practices of digital firms along with anti-steering, self-preferencing, tying, and bundling in the digital markets in India.
• The committee had proposed a Digital Competition Bill in the document, supplying for ex-ante policies to scale back these anti-aggressive practices.

Key Highlights

• Predictive Regulation: It proposes a ahead-looking, preventive, and presumptive regulation (an ex ante framework) that foresees the capability harms that could stand up out of antitrust problems and prescribes pre-decided no-cross areas.
  • Currently, India follows an ex post antitrust framework under the Competition Act, 2002. 
  • One of the most important criticisms of the regulation has been that regulating after the occurrence of market abuse involves delays — by the time the offending employer has been penalised, market dynamics change to rule out smaller competition.
• Significant entities: The Bill proposes that for certain “core digital offerings” like search engines like google and yahoo, and social media web sites, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) have to designate corporations as “Systematically Significant Digital Enterprise (SSDE)” depending on various quantitative and qualitative parameters such as turnover, user base, market have an effect on and so forth.
  • Entities that don’t fall under these parameters can still be special as SSDEs if the CCI believes that they have got a significant presence in any given core digital provider. 
  • Entities which are specified as SSDEs, were prohibited from undertaking practices which include self-preferencing, anti-steerage, and proscribing third party packages. 
  • If they violate these requirements, they can be fined up to 10% in their worldwide turnover.
• Associate Digital Enterprises: Understanding the role that information accrued through one corporation of a primary generation organization can play in benefitting other institution groups, the Bill proposes to designate associate digital companies (ADEs).
  • If an entity of a set is determined to be an accomplice entity, they would have the same duties as SSDEs relying on the level of their involvement with the core digital carrier presented by using the main enterprise. 
• Enforcement of provisions: The draft Bill empowers the Director General, appointed under the 2002 Act, to research any contraventions while directed by way of the CCI. 

Need for the Bill

• The big tech corporations have shown a history of conducting anti-aggressive practices, and a presumptive framework would work better to cope with this.
• Last 12 months, Google was fined Rs 1.337 crore by the CCI for its anti-competitive behavior within the Android atmosphere.
• There is also difficulty that inside the closing decade or so, a majority of the innovation has been constrained to in the stables of a handful of large tech agencies, in the main from america.
• Officials believe that a huge purpose for this are the high market obstacles for brand spanking new entrants in the area — within the online market.

Criticism of the Draft Bill

• Compliance Burden: For large tech businesses, an ex ante framework with its strict prescriptive norms should result in extensive compliance burden, and shift focus from innovation and studies.
  • As a result, the tech giants are calling for the contemporary competition law to be strengthened in preference to transferring toward an ex ante framework. 
• Broad Definition of Entities: Companies are also understood to be concerned about the huge definition — both quantitative and qualitative — of who a significant platform may be.
  • Unlike EU’s DMA which specifically names the ‘gatekeeper’ entities, that selection in India’s draft law has been left to the discretion of the CCI. 
  • Companies trust that would result in arbitrary choice making, that can probably also affect start-ups. 

Conclusion

• Ex-ante regimes inform businesses precisely the way to behave, or what to do. 
• Under the contemporary ex-put up regime of the Competition Act, businesses are only required to ensure that their behavior in the market is not anti-aggressive. 
• An overlapping ex-ante regime proposed under the digital competition Bill will force tech agencies to conform with parallel law and undertake measures for added compliance.

Source: The Hindu

UPSC Prelims Practice Question

Q. With reference to ‘consumers’ rights/privileges under the provisions of law in India, which of the following statements is/are correct? (2012)

1. Consumers are empowered to take samples for food testing.
2. When a consumer files a complaint in any consumer forum, no fee is required to be paid.
3. In case of death of consumer, his/her legal heir can file a complaint in the consumer forum on his/her behalf.

Select the correct answer using the codes given below:

(a) 1 only 

(b) 2 and 3 only 

(c) 1 and 3 only 

(d) 1, 2 and 3

Ans: (c)