India: Competition Commission opened investigation into Google over alleged abuse of dominance and anti-competitive conduct in ad-tech intermediation services (Case No. 34 of 2024)

On 1 August 2025, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) issued an order in Case No. 34 of 2024 under Section 26(1) of the Competition Act, 2022, directing the Director General (DG) to investigate allegations concerning ad-tech intermediation services provided by Google. The Information, filed under Section 19(1)(a) of the Act, alleged violations of Sections 3(4) and 4 through conduct such as the tying of DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) with Google’s Ad Exchange (AdX) into Google Ad Manager, imposition of unfair and discriminatory conditions on publishers and third-party exchanges (3PX), abuse of market power through Google’s Open Bidding and Unified Pricing Rule policies, lack of fee transparency, and leveraging of dominance in general web search to protect its position in AdTech markets. The CCI prima facie accepted the relevant market delineation proposed by the Informant, covering publisher ad servers, ad buying tools, ad exchanges, and general web search services in India, and observed that these functionalities are distinct and non-substitutable. Given that similar issues are already under investigation, the CCI decided to consolidate Case No. 34 with Case Nos. 41 of 2021, 10 of 2022, and 36 of 2022, the CCI decided to club the present matter with those cases and directed the DG to conduct a comprehensive investigation and submit a consolidated report.