The Competition Commission of India has ordered an investigation into the “abuse of dominance” by tech giant Google.
The Indian Newspaper Society (INS) has sought fair value for content hosted on Google, stating that news publishers are not being properly compensated for the content they generate.
The statement released on Friday said:
“The News Media Houses are completely kept in the dark on the total advertising revenue collected by Google and what actual percentage of the advertising revenue is being transferred to media organizations. The European Publishers Council had also filed a competition complaint against Google alleging that Google has achieved end to end control of the ad tech value chain, thus abusing its dominant position".
The society has also alleged that this practice is a violation of Section 4 of the Competition Act, 2002.
“The INS has highlighted the fact that the producer/publisher of news which are made available in digital format, are not being paid a fair value for their content, despite them having invested heavily in creating appropriate content for the customers, who search for news items using the Google platform,”
the press statement said.
The CCI passed an order to club the information submitted by the INS with the submissions made by the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) who have also filed information before the CCI on similar contentions.
The INS points out that several countries, including Australia, France and Spain have passed legislation requiring tech companies, including Google, “to adequately compensate content producers for using their content and search results”.
Source: The Hindu Times
