No competition law violations found; complaint junked against Google India

The Competition Commission of India has dismissed a complaint against Google India alleging the tech giant abused its dominant position to favour Truecaller in the market for caller ID and spam protection apps, as it found no evidence of violation of competition law.

While dismissing the complaint, the fair trade regulator said, "The Commission finds that no prima facie case of contravention of the provisions of Section 4 of the Act is made out against Google in the instant matter".

Section 4 of the Competition Act, deals with the abuse of dominant position.

The ruling came on a complaint filed by Rachna Khaira (informant) accusing Google of granting exclusive access to Truecaller to share private contact information while prohibiting other apps from doing the same.

 

Further, she alleged that this practice has distorted the market and created a monopoly for Truecaller.

The informant also alleged that Google's developer policy prohibits unauthorised disclosure of non-public contacts, and Truecaller's privacy policy, to which she argued allowed the sharing of such information.

Further, Khaira alleged that Google favoured Truecaller due to commercial arrangements involving Google's cloud storage and advertising services.

The regulator after reviewing submissions from both Google and Khaira, found that the informant's claims were unsubstantiated.

"...the allegation of the Informant remains unsubstantiated and despite sufficient opportunity, the informant has not provided any evidence to prima facie establish that Google is according either preferential treatment to Truecaller or resorting to discriminatory practises by allowing access to user's contact data to Truecaller while denying the same to the competing applications," CCI said in an order on June 24.

The competition watchdog also addressed the commercial relationship allegations against the tech major, stating that mere commercial relationships do not imply preferential treatment unless proven.

However, the regulator found no evidence suggesting that these changes granted Truecaller a competitive advantage over its rivals.

The request for interim relief by the informant to temporarily block Truecaller from operating on the Play Store was also rejected by the competition watchdog.

"The Commission finds that no prima facie case of contravention of the provisions of Section 4 of the Act is made out against Google in the instant matter.

"Accordingly, the Information is ordered to be closed," the fair trade regulator said.