The Competition Commission of India has ordered a more detailed investigation against Google for alleged unfair revenue sharing terms with respect to news content.
The case will be linked with two other ongoing cases against the search engine major where the allegations are largely similar, according to Competition Commission of India (CCI),
The latest order comes on a complaint filed by the News Broadcasters and Digital Association.
In January this year, the CCI had ordered an inquiry against them. Google On the complaint filed by Digital News Publishers Association. Later, the Indian Newspaper Society also registered a similar case and was clubbed with the earlier case.
The Director General (DG) of the regulator’s investigation wing will now submit the consolidated investigation report.
The News Broadcasters and Digital Association alleged that its members were forced to provide their news content to Google in order to prioritize their weblinks in Google’s search engine results page (SERP). As a result, Google gives members a free ride on their content without adequate compensation, according to the complaint.
Among others, it was alleged that Google exploited members’ reliance on search engines offered by Google for referral-traffic by building services such as Google NewsGoogle Discover and Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP).
The search engine provides news content to the major user through Google Search and the news aggregator vertical, Google News.
According to the complaint, in Google Search, users can either search for news directly through the News tab or get news through results in the SERPs. Google incorporates news content into its SERPs via featured snippets, including the ‘Top Stories’ carousel.
However, the revenue distributed by Google to news publishers does not offset the actual contributions made by the association’s members to these platforms.
In its four-page order dated October 6 and issued on Friday, the CCI said the allegations are largely similar to the case being probed by the regulator.
The CCI has directed the DG to club the cases and submit a consolidated inquiry report.
The cases where there is prima facie evidence of violation of competition norms are referred by the CCI to its investigation wing DG for detailed investigation.
complaint has been filed against AlphabetGoogle, Google India, Google Ireland and Google Asia Pacific.
The association has national and regional private news and current affairs broadcasters and digital news media organizations as its members.