India's antitrust body wrongly backed Amazon arguments, says Google.
Google has accused India's antitrust body of ordering changes to its business model "only to protect" rival Amazon, which complained about its struggles to develop a modified version of the Android system due to Google's restrictions.
Google has approached India's Supreme Court to quash the Competition Commission of India's (CCI) October order asking the company to make changes to its business model after the CCI found it abused its dominant position in the market with its Android operating system, which powers 97% of India's smartphones.
In an earlier December filing in a lower tribunal, Google said CCI officers had "copypasted" parts of a European ruling against the U.S. firm in a similar case. CCI denied the accusation.
In the CCI's October order, which also fined Google $162 million, the company was asked to allow modified versions of its Android operating system, called Android forks, to be liberally distributed without any licensing restrictions such as those related to pre-installation of Google apps.
Amazon told the CCI during the investigation that Google's restrictions hindered development of its Android fork called Fire OS, and Google said the watchdog unfairly relied on that in passing its adverse decision against it, the company said in the June 26 Supreme Court filing.
"Globally, FireOS failed commercially due to poor user experience. In India, the Fire Phone was not even launched,"
Google argued in its 1,004-page filing, which has not been made public but was reviewed by Reuters.
Google believes that India's antitrust authority wrongly blamed it for Amazon's failure. The CCI's directive was issued "only to protect Amazon - who complained that its attempts at creating a forked version of the Android did not work because of (Google's) restrictions."
Google has been particularly concerned about India's Android decision as the directives were seen as even more sweeping than those imposed in the European Commission's landmark 2018 ruling against the company's Android market abuse.
In its October ruling, the CCI said its investigators found Google's contractual restrictions had "reduced the ability and incentive of device manufacturers to develop and sell" devices operating on Android forks, hurting consumer interests.
Source: Reuters
