The CCI, which is the Competition Commission of India, is investigating the big G. They think Google rigged search results in India. If found guilty, Google might be fined 10 percent of the company’s income. That’s a whooping $1.4 billion.
The CCI has received complaints from more than 30 companies around the world. Facebook, Flipkart, Hungama Digital, MakeMyTrip and Nokia’s maps division are among the companies who have told on Google.
The main issue here is that Google has been gaming search results to display their own content and services more obviously, regardless of the fact that other sources have a higher hit rate.
The report filed by CCI notes also notes that sponsored links that are shown in results show a direct correlation with the amount of money an individual, or a company, spends on adverts with sneaky-Google. Flipkart, an ecommerce portal, states that they are a victim in this case.
Google needs to respond until the 10th of September. The company has to present itself in front of a seven member commission on the 17th, a week later. The commission is headed by Chairman Ashok Chawla.
Can we say that Google rigged search results for certain? Welp, we can’t say for sure. However, what we can say is that Google is acting more mischievous than it normally does. A few months ago, in March, the CCI fined Google with $166,000 for failing to cooperate.
More so, just last week they rejected claims that they are rigging search results in Europe. Google faces the exact same charges on the EU front.
We expect a decision being made until the end of the year. If Google is found guilty, they can be fined up to $6.7 billion, or a 10 percent payment of its annual revenue.
If this goes south for G, the decision will most likely be challenged at the Supreme Court. If they still won’t win, the CCI commission will ask the company to make major changes regarding the way they do business.
This is the first time a case goes globally where an antitrust body is formed and rises against Google.
According to Ms. Vestager, who is a Danish politician, Google is also being investigated by the European Union regarding their dominance over its Android OS.
Kent Walker denied these accusations last Thursday via a blog-post. Kent added that Google hasn’t reduced online competition at all, in fact, the company has sent approximately 20 billion referrals to various Internet companies across Europe over the past 10 years. This lead to a 227 percent increase in traffic for the websites targeted.
We’ll see how our search-engine Lord and Savior gets out of this one. What do you think? Is Google knowingly profiting from their stance of top-dog?
