The Competition Commission of India ordered a probe against internet giant Google over alleged abuse of dominant position in news aggregation based on a complaint filed by the Digital News Publishers Association, with members such as India Today, Indian Express, ABP and others.
The news organisations alleged that because of “unilateral, arbitrary and unfair decisions” of Google, they have to suffer a loss of ad revenue as well as a fair share in the value chain or news dissemination. It alleged that website publishers only receive 51% of the money spent by advertisers.
The association further claimed that Google does not share data on the revenue it earns from advertising on news websites and only shares a small chunk of its advertising revenue in an unpredictable manner.
“The imbalance and denial of fair share in ad revenue merit a detailed investigation,” the Competition Commission said. The regulator said, “It needs to be examined whether the use of snippets by Google is a result of bargaining power imbalance between Google on the one hand and news publishers on the other, and whether it affects the referral traffic to news publisher websites, and thus, their monetisation abilities.”
The CCI directed the Director General to investigate the matter and submit a report within 60 days. It added that nothing that was mentioned is equivalent to a final opinion in the case.
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