The Indian Competition Commission (ICC) fined Rs 1,337.76 crore on Google for anti-competitive practices regarding the licensing of its Android operating system (OS) and proprietary mobile applications such as Play Store, Google Search, Google Chrome, YouTube and others.
The CCI gave Google 30 days to provide the necessary financial details and supporting documents.
The competition watchdog said that in its assessment it concluded that Google was dominant in the Indian market for licensed operating systems for smartphones, from the application store for operating systems for Android smartphones, general web search services, non-OS specific mobile browsers and online video hosting platform. The penalty was imposed for breaching Section 4 of the Competition Act.
“With respect to the penalty calculation, the Commission noted that there were glaring inconsistencies and broad disclaimers in Google’s presentation of various revenue data points,” a statement said. by the ICC.
He further added: “However, in the interests of justice and with the aim of ensuring the necessary correction of the market as soon as possible, the Commission has quantified the provisional monetary penalties on the basis of the data presented by Google.”
The ICC also issued a “cease and desist order” against Google for engaging in anti-competitive practices that were found to violate the provisions of Section 4. The ICC said that Google will have to implement measures, in particular, not requiring smartphone manufacturers to pre-install a bouquet of Google’s proprietary applications, guaranteeing the interoperability of applications between Android OS in accordance with the compatibility requirements of Google and Android Forks, among other measures.
The ICC’s findings come three years after it ordered an investigation into Google’s alleged dominance in the Android smartphone market in April 2019.
In a separate investigation, CCI also looked at Google’s Play Store billing policies, which discourage payment through other UPI apps and charge app developers a 30% commission for publishing their app on the Play Store. .