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The Competition Commission has ordered a further detailed investigation into Google over alleged unfair revenue sharing terms with respect to news content.
The case will be joined with two other pending matters against the major search engine where the allegations are essentially the same, according to the Competition Commission of India (CCI).
The latest order came on the heels of a complaint filed by the News Broadcasters & Digital Association.
In January this year, the CCI had ordered an inquiry into Google on a complaint filed by the Digital News Publishers Association. Later, Indian Newspaper Society also filed a similar case and it was joined with the first one.
Now, the director general (DG) of the regulator’s investigation group will submit a consolidated investigation report, the watchdog said in an order issued on Friday.
The News Broadcasters & Digital Association claimed that its members are being forced to provide their news content to Google in order to rank their web links on Google’s search engine results page (SERP). As a result, Google uses members’ content for free without providing them with adequate compensation, according to the complaint.
Among other things, it was alleged that Google exploited members’ dependencies on the search engine offered by Google for referral traffic to create services such as Google News, Google Discover and Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP).
The main search engine provides news content to the user through Google Search and through a vertical news aggregator, Google News.
According to the complaint, Google Search users can either directly search for news through the News tab or receive news through SERP results. Google has incorporated news content into its SERPs through featured snippets including the “Top Stories” carousel.
However, the revenue distributed by Google to news publishers does not compensate for the actual contribution of association members to these platforms, he added.
In a four-page order dated October 6, issued on Friday, the CCI said the allegations are essentially the same as in a matter already under investigation by the regulator.
The CCI directed the Directorate General to consolidate the matters and submit a consolidated investigation report.
Cases where there is prima facie evidence of violation of competition norms are referred by the CCI to its Directorate General of Investigations for detailed investigation.
The complaint was filed against Alphabet Inc, Google LLC, Google India Pvt Ltd, Google Ireland Ltd and Google Asia Pacific Pte Ltd. The association consists of national and regional private news and non-fiction broadcasters and digital news media entities as its members.
