India: Announced CCI investigation into Google's alleged abuse of dominance in news aggregation

On 6 October 2022, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) opened an investigation (Case No. 36 of 2022) into Google (Alphabet) following a complaint by the “News Broadcasters & Digital Association”. The Association alleges that Google abused its dominant market position in news aggregation by imposing terms and conditions that favour the company. Firstly, the Association claims that Google is using and benefiting from the content created by publishers without providing them adequate compensation. Secondly, the Association alleges that Google is abusing its power in the advertising market, noting that publishers don’t have alternatives to Google’s advertising exchange. Thirdly, the Association alleges that Google is “encouraging members” not to use header bidding, a technique that allows publishers to offer inventory simultaneously to multiple advertising exchanges. Finally, the Association states that Google imposes the implementation of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), claiming that publishers that don’t implement it are losing their ranking. The CCI will investigate the allegations alongside the two other inquiries opened into Google over the alleged abuse of its dominant market position.