Last week the Competition Commission of India imposed a penalty of Rs 1,337.76 crore on Google for “abusing its dominant position” in the Android mobile device ecosystem. On Tuesday, the Commission levied another penalty of Rs 936.44 crore on the firm for misusing its position vis a vis its Play Store policies. In its orders, the CCI has accused the company of adopting “discriminatory practices” and indulging in “anti-competitive” behaviour. The orders also lay out a set of corrective measures with regards to the Play Store policies and the Android ecosystem. This has far-reaching implications for the larger digital ecosystem in the country.
The CCI’s orders detail how Google was able to exploit the licensing of the Android operating system to its advantage. The company ventured into agreements such as the mobile application distribution agreement (MADA), which ensured that the “most prominent search entry points”, such as the search app and the chrome browser, are pre-installed on Android devices. This “accorded significant competitive edge to Google’s search services over its competitors”, the CCI has said. Such arrangements also allowed the company to gain advantage over its competitors in adjacent markets — for instance, YouTube. The CCI also said that Play Store policies mandated the exclusive use of Google Play’s billing system by app developers for both receiving payments and in-app purchases. It pointed out that the UPI platform was placed at a disadvantage, with technological preference being given to Google Pay. The company has informed the Commission that it had recently changed its policies that placed UPI at a disadvantage.
