Google has to worry about Indian law, but not CCI orders

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Editor's note: The Competition Commission of India has come down heavily on Google. In the past two weeks, the antitrust regulator has passed two orders against the company for anti-competitive behaviour. Both orders involved large penalties by the CCI’s standards—Rs 1,338 crore and Rs 936 crore. The big question that was asked (and answered) in both orders was if there is a substitute for Google’s services in India. The CCI has concluded that there is not. Unsurprisingly, it found Google to be dominant in all the sectors it investigated. It also found Google to be abusing that dominant position and, hence, in contravention of multiple sections of the Competition Act.  “It cannot be denied that Indian consumers, [manufacturers] and app developers have been deprived of choice due to anti-competitive practices of Google in the relevant markets,” the regulator said in its first order.  “The plea that there is no consumer or competition harm is not tenable…”Competition Commission of India Both orders are fairly comprehensive and one of the first significant instances of action taken against a big tech company in India. The …