Citing landmark cases against Google and Meta*, the CCI says it's ready to act—if startups are willing to push back.
Indian startups struggle to compete with global big tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon, due to their vast resources and control of data, said Ansuman Pattnaik, director general, Competition Commission of India (CCI), the country's anti-trust body.
"Startups do face problems with the big digital firms, popularly called GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft) and now NVIDIA. It is because these firms are pretty powerful and have rich resources and data. Against them, startups sometimes find difficulty in growing,"
said Pattnaik.
He was speaking at a panel on the theme, 'Regulatory Landscape for Startups: Balancing Compliance and Growth’, at the Startup Mahakumbh on Saturday.
Delving into the specific concerns, Pattnaik said that emerging startups do not get equal access to the market.
"The major challenges are like self-references as they (big-tech firms) promote their products rather than the products of startups. They do anti-steering, not allowing startups to talk to them directly. They can also do what is called market access. There are issues of platform neutrality also,”
he said, pointing out price fixing as one of the challenges homegrown startups face.
Pattnaik said the CCI plays a corrective role in such scenarios. Startups that believe they’ve been unfairly treated can file complaints or submit information, and the Commission will take up the matter.
He cited the Google and WhatsApp cases as key precedents.
Recently, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) upheld the CCI’s finding that Google had abused its dominant position in the digital payments and app store markets. While the tribunal reduced the penalty from ₹936.44 crore ($113 million) to ₹216.69 crore ($26 villion), it directed Google to open its app ecosystem to alternative payment systems and refrain from discriminatory practices against other UPI-based options.
The CCI also investigated WhatsApp’s 2021 privacy policy, which mandated user data sharing with its parent company Meta. In January 2025, the tribunalstayed a CCI order that would have barred WhatsApp from sharing user data with Meta for five years, citing the pending final notification of the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Rules expected by mid-2025.
Despite this temporary relief for Meta, the CCI had earlier fined the company ₹213 crore, ($25,5 million) ruling that WhatsApp’s policy abused its dominant position by mandating data sharing without user consent.
“Some important decisions have been filed against those orders, and they’re going to help startups,” Pattnaik said. "But the issue is quite complicated, and the penalties can be huge—up to 10% of global turnover. That’s why these big firms contest all the cases. So, if startups feel they’re being neglected or that proper business practices aren't being followed by a big firm, they can still file a complaint before the commission, and we will take up the case,"
stressed Ansuman Pattnaik.
*along with its subsidiaries Facebook and Instagram is banned and designated as extremist in Russia
Sources: Business Standard, Mint
