ANTITRUST LAW AGAINST GOOGLE

  ANTITRUST LAW AGAINST GOOGLE

INTRODUCTION

Google had been sued by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) for antitrust violations. Google was accused by the Department of Justice of illegally establishing a monopoly in general search services and search advertising.

According to the DOJ, Google utilises its financial clout to bribe mobile phone manufacturers, carriers, and browsers to keep Google as their default search engine, creating a self-reinforcing dominance cycle.According to the allegations, these illicit trade practises result in an unprecedented concentration of market power in the hands of digital platforms such as Google.

ALLEGATIONS

In the digital economy, Google is one of the most important companies. It has positioned itself as a global leader in the Internet ecosystem due to its inventiveness. Google has built leading digital products based on a review of this. Google's licenced operating system, Android, for example, dominates the smartphone market, while the Chrome browser dominates desktops and mobiles. Because of Android's popularity, Google can charge a whopping 30% fee on apps sold through the Android Play Store. According to this, Google is accused of abusing its position of dominance to promote other businesses it owns.

Google was fined a record 4.3 billion euros in the EU for anti-competitive actions, and was ordered to provide Android users a choice of four default browsers. In 2019, the Indian Competition Commission found Google guilty of abusing its dominant position in the mobile Android market by imposing "unfair conditions" on device manufacturers to prevent them from using rival operating systems.

ANTITRUST LAW IN INDIA

The goal of antitrust law, also known as competition law, is to defend trade and commerce against unfair constraints, monopolies, and price fixing. It assures that in an open-market economy, there is fair competition.

India has its own version of competition law for 40 years, which was created by the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1969. (MRTP Act). This legislation, which was based on the principles of a "command and control" economy, was intended to establish a regulatory regime in the country that would prevent the concentration of economic power in a few hands that would be detrimental to the public interest, and thus prohibit any monopolistic and restrictive trade practises.

The Competition Act, 2002 is India’s antitrust law. It repealed and replaced the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1969 (MRTP Act) on the recommendations of the Raghavan committee.

CONCLUSION

When a sector develops a monopoly or has a highly concentrated market share, regulators must ensure that competition is not suffocated through unethical tactics. India's own Competition Commission should explore being more involved in the regulation of areas where concentrations are occurring, such as telecom, retail, ports, and airports. The new tax framework should reflect the nature of global digital business models and avoid double-taxation as a result of tax efforts. As a result, governments and businesses must collaborate to create an effective tax structure that harmonises worldwide tax standards.