Google is not only fighting anti-trust lawsuits in the USA it seems, but now in India too as the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has launched a new investigation into Google, for allegedly using its Android market dominance to promote its own payment app known as Google Pay.
The investigation began after CCI followed up on a complaint made back in February, 2020, which alleged that apps are mandated to utilize the Google Pay service “if they want to be listed on the Play Store” and they are required to pay a “high commission” for that. The complaint also claims that Google skews the search results on the Play Store in favor of Google Pay app over others.
The CCI has stated that they will be looking into the first claim but not the latter as there is not enough evidence to support it. From an initial review, they discovered that Google Pay was imposed on developers as a method to buy their app or make in-app purchases which is an “imposition of unfair and discriminatory condition, denial of market access for competing apps,”.
As for Google, they claim that Android is not the dominant OS if feature phones are considered and that Google Pay operates fairly in a highly competitive environment. Google also pointed out that Android is open to other app markets other than the Play Store and developers have no obligations to use it.
Of course, the CCI will investigate all of these claims in depth and decide if Google is in violation of of various provisions of Section 4 of India’s Competition Act of 2002.
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