Competition Commission of India (CCI) slaps massive penalty on Google for unfair search practices

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has slapped a huge penalty to the tune of Rs. 136 crore on Google. According to the judgment, Google has been doing unfair business practices in the online search market in India. The CCI pronounced the order after 6 years of legal battle. A complaint was filed in 2012 by Matrimony.com and Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS) against Google LLC, Google India Pvt Ltd, and Google Ireland Ltd.

It has been noted that Google abused its dominant position in the online search segment by adopting bad practices such as search bias and manipulation. The CCI in its judgment ruled that penalty is being imposed on the search engine giant for infringing anti-trust conduct and for adopting search bias.

The order states that the Google has violated basic ethics and caused serious harm to the competitors as well as to users. Moreover, the commission carefully studied the submissions and affidavits filed by Google and found that imposing the penalty is the most appropriate form of punishment.

Interestingly, the penalty amount of Rs. 135.86 is around 5 percent of the total revenue of the company’s revenue from India for the FY 2013, 2014 and 2015. The judgment rules that the penalty amount should be deposited within 60 days from the date of the order.

Google is the main gateway for users globally who make use of the website to search for content. Hence, the company should discharge its responsibility very well. The CCI also ruled that various restrictions imposed under the negotiated search intermediation agreements have been held to be unfair.