The antitrust watchdog in India ordered an investigation into the search giant after news publishers complained that it was using its dominance in news aggregation to impose unfair conditions on them.
The Competition Commission of India said Friday that it believed that the company had broken local antitrust laws and pointed to new rules in France and Australia where the firm has been asked to enter into "fair/good faith negotiation" with news publishers for paid licensing.
The allegations of the informant make it appear that news publishers have no choice but to accept the terms and conditions imposed by the internet giant. On the one hand, it appears that Google is a gateway between various news publishers and news readers on the other. The CCI said in its 21-page order that another alternative for the news publisher is to forgo the traffic generated by the search engine.
The Digital News Publishers Association complaint includes the digital arms of some of India's biggest media firms. According to the association, their members get more than half of their traffic from online search engines, a category that is clearly commanded by Google, and the market-leading position has allowed the company to force the publishers into several unfavorable terms.
In a wide-ranging complaint, the association said that displaying snippets of news items limits the number of visitors to news outlets and impacts the ad revenue.
The terms of the agreements between the members of the Informant and the OPs for sharing the advertisement revenues are dictated by the OPs.
Publishers who subscribe to the system will be better off than those who don't, the watchdog said. The association said that they are being forced to use theAMP format which has implications on their revenue.
A person who answered the request for comment did not reply.
In a well-functioning democracy, the critical role played by news media cannot be undermined, and it needs to be ensured that digital gatekeeper firms do not abuse their dominant position to harm the competitive process of determining a fair distribution of revenue amongst all stakeholders.
The Indian competition watchdog has ordered a number of probes in recent weeks. The CCI ordered an investigation into how Apple runs its App Store, becoming the most recent country to take aim at the American technology giant.
