Qishin Tariq · · 1 min readGoogle slapped with $162m fine by India’s antitrust body
Google was fined 13,377.6 million rupees (US$162 million) by India’s competition regulator on accusations that the internet giant abused its dominant position, The Indian Express reported.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) said the tech firm abused its dominance in several areas including, the licensing of its Android operating system, the Android app store, general web search services, non-operating system-specific mobile web browsers, and online video-hosting platforms.
Google was given 30 days to provide financial details and supporting documents requested by the CCI or face a higher penalty.
The antitrust authority also ordered Google to cease and desist some business practices, including denying “disadvantaged” original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) access to its Play Services plugins and licensing the Play Store to OEMs on the condition they pre-install other Google services like its browser, email, or map apps.
Google was ordered to cease restricting app developers from distributing their apps outside the Play Store – a practice called side-loading, which Google warns opens users up to cybersecurity risks.
See also: Indonesian startups push back on Google Play’s new billing rules
Currency converted from Indian rupee to US dollar: US$1 = 73.27 rupee.
Editing by Deepti Sri
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