India watchdog fines Google $21m for ‘search bias’

Google has been fined 1.36 billion rupees (21 million dollars) by India’s anti-trust watchdog for abusing its dominant position in online search services, officials and reports said Friday.

In its 190-page ruling, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) found that users searching for flight details were directed to Google’s own flight search page.

“Google was found to be indulging in practices of search bias and by doing so, it causes harm to its competitors as well as to users,” the CCI said in the order posted on its website.

Google, which has the right to appeal the order, said it was reviewing the CCI’s concerns, its spokesperson told the Economic Times daily.

“The CCI has confirmed that, on the majority of issues it examined, our product complies with Indian competition laws,” the spokesperson said.

CCI’s ruling is a result of a 2012 complaint by Indian matchmaking website Bharat Matrimony and a consumer protection group, Consumer Unity and Trust Society.

The penalty amounts to about 5 per cent of Google’s average annual revenues in India over three years to 2015.

The fine is meagre compared to the 2.4-billion-dollar penalty Google was forced to pay by the European Commission in 2017 for manipulating shopping searches.

Google’s parent company Alphabet has reported profits exceeding 6.5 billion dollars in the past two quarters.
Google also faced similar anti-trust charges in Russia in 2017 but settled the matter out of court.