Google Receives $161.9M Antitrust Fine in India, Its Largest Online Search Market

On Thursday, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) penalized Google ₹1,337.76 million or $161.9 million for anticompetitive conduct in the mobile device space. The regulator concluded after a three-and-a-half-year-long investigation that Google abused its dominant position in “multiple markets.”

The $161.9 million fine goes hand-in-hand with an order to reorient its strategy and conduct that has so far resulted in:

• Users continuing to leverage its search engine on mobile devices, thus enabling “uninterrupted” growth in ad revenue
• Enabling the Alphabet-owned company to “invest and improve its services to the exclusion of others”

CCI’s probe revealed that Google’s edge over competitors stems from mandatorily pre-installed Google Mobile Suite on mobile devices, something that violates Section 4(2)(a)(i) of India’s Competition Act.

Google’s anticompetitive transgressions, according to the CCI, also pertain to denying market access to competitors in online search [Section 4(2)(c)], abusing its dominance to stifle Android and non-Android competitors in the app store market [Section 4(2)(e)], web browser, and YouTube.

The sheer size of its population makes India the biggest market for Google in terms of online search trafficOpens a new window . Moreover, Google presided over 98.62%Opens a new window of India’s search engine market. With 95.46% of usersOpens a new window on Android, the mobile operating system has the biggest share in India.

“Markets should be allowed to compete on merits and the onus is on the dominant players (in the present case, Google) that its conduct does not impinge this competition on merits,” CCI statedOpens a new window , adding that the company used Mobile Application Distribution Agreement (MADA), Anti-fragmentation Agreement (AFA), Android Compatibility Commitment Agreement (ACC), Revenue Sharing Agreement (RSA), to give itself a competitive edge.

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CCI added that these agreements force original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to sell devices pre-installed with apps such as Google Chrome, Google Search, YouTube, Google Maps, etc. The watchdog further added that users are also unable to uninstall said applications.

The penalty is accompanied by a cease and desist order for anticompetitive conduct, meaning the company would need to relinquish the agreements that eliminate multiple app choices for users and allow them to uninstall apps.

Compared to the $161.9 million fine, Google’s Q2 2022Opens a new window revenue and net income stood at $61.88 billion and $18.52 billion, respectively.

Google was penalized €1.49 billionOpens a new window ($1.74 billion) for breaching EU antitrust rules for AdSense in March 2019. In June 2021, the company was fined €220 millionOpens a new window ($268 million) by France’s antitrust watchdog for abusing its dominance in the market. Google is also facing three coalition-led lawsuits in the U.S. and is being probed by the Department of Justice to understand the extent of its stranglehold over the online advertising space.

In September 2022, the General Court of the European Union upheldOpens a new window a 2018 antitrust ruling against Google over allegations that it imposed unlawful restrictions on manufacturers of Android mobile devices, thus harming competition. Consequently, Google was penalized €4.125 billion (~$4.12 billion), reduced from the original €4.34 billion ($4.33 billion).

Google’s anticompetitive woes do not end here. The company also earned the scrutiny of the U.K. and EU-based publishers, who, in September 2022, alleged that the company abused its market position in the ad-tech space.

Humphries Kerstetter, a U.K-based law firm hired against Google, claimed that victims have collectively lost £7 billion ($8.08 billion). Dutch law firm Geradin Partners will representOpens a new window EU-based publishers who are expected to claim €25 billionOpens a new window ($24.989 billion) through class-action lawsuits.

Google also received privacy-related fines in South Korea and France in 2022.

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