The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has filed an appeal in Supreme Court against the judgment of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) in the case against Google’s violation of anti-trust provisions, according to Moneycontrol. The judgment in question, reviewed by MediaNama, upheld the Rs 1337.76 crore fine imposed by CCI but, at the same time, did not uphold all of CCI’s complaints against the company. For instance, it allowed Google to warn its users about sideloading (downloading apps outside the Google PlayStore) and said that Google does not need to share its API (Application Programming Interface) with third-party apps. It also said that the pre-installation of Google applications by smartphone manufacturers is not an unfair practice and that the inability to uninstall Google apps does not give rise to competition. Some context please: In April 2019, three Android consumers filed an anti-trust case against Google’s market dominance in: The Indian smartphone operating system market (Android) The app store market for Android smartphones (PlayStore) The market for general web services (Google search) The market for non-OS specific mobile web browsers in India (Chrome) The market for online video hosting platforms (OVHP) in India. (YouTube) This complaint was heard by the CCI, and it ultimately decided against Google and said that Google must take away its side-loading restrictions, must not force phone manufacturers to pre-install Google applications, and must allow users to choose their phone’s default search engines. These were only some of the many stringent modifications that the CCI asked Google to adhere…
