Outlook English - Print Subscribers Copy Outlook English, 26 February 2018

the new age platforms may abuse their dominance without “necessarily having a high marketshare”, although the current law recognises abuse of domi- nance only where there is a high market- share. “The law needs to catch up with the digital economy since the platforms may have such great network effects that it might cause competition conc erns in a way that is not imagined in the law today,” she says. There may be more ponderous times ahead. Taking off from an earlier refer- ence, the vertical search (as opposed to Google’s horizontal method) may be about to come under the scanner next. When news of the CCI order broke, Illustration by SAJITH KUMAR Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma tweeted, calling it a “milestone verdict”. sises that the ruling only applies to a “A great hope for Indian tech startup subset of online players, who dominate ecosystem. Once you become bigger a particular slice of the online market. beyond a size, large dominating tech He adds that the CCI “hasn’t done companies start playing super dirty anything so drastic that it would with you!(sic)” his tweet reads. destroy innovation in the online market”—an argument Google has spokesperson from the All India made multiple times. Online Vendors Association Digital advertising consultants, who (AIOVA), which represents over mediate between brands and the 2,000 online sellers, tells Outlook Adword interface, still consider Google that the major e-commerce players, the go-to option. “My mind is pro- who say they will “take Google to the grammed—my website is in order if it is CCI”, are playing the “same dirty abiding by the rules of Google,” says one. games” on their platforms as well. “The trick is in figuring out ways to go to “When we speak about them, they are the top on the results page.” not retailers but marketplaces. How Believing that the competition law ever, if you open their websites on any needs to catch up with a rapidly chang- given day, you will find either their ing digital economy, Venkataraman says exclusive product or a particular sell- er’s product on their homepage,” says koregaon the AIOVA spokesperson, who claims remnants of the british divide and rule policy sellers have to pay in lakhs for the same advertising spots. “They also give adv antage to certain sellers. An informal complaint has been sent to the CCI and they will follow up with a formal one as well. There should be a clear divide on how much a technology company should do if they are getting into all these services using our data.” That data is the new oil is nothing new. Even the CCI in its order says “it would How to gobble up Indian media? not be out of place to equate data in this century to what oil was to the last one”. Google Search I’m Feeling Lucky That said, the horizontal and vertical www.google.co.in This search engine is now the second largest media pulls of searches that draw from differ- company in terms of revenue and may overtake the Times of India Group ent needs of the web user may stretch soon. It doesn’t spend a paisa gathering news or pay for others’ content, but it dictates digital ads and rates. The taxmen too are fighting for their dues. competition and its law in India to the limit. The search for ways to make the Google behemoth more fair and dem Outlook cover, January 22, 2018 ocratic is far from over. O A According to Venkataraman, the Competition Act is not fully equipped to deal with the digital economy. “The more we move towards a digital econ- omy, the more apparent this handicap will become,” she says. “The minority view in the order was more nuanced, explaining why the majority was hasty in holding Google guilty of abusing its dominant position. It said the onus was on the majority bench to show how Google Flights was foreclosing the market to other players, and in the absence of this being proved, Google cannot be held guilty.” And finally, the CCI held Google’s agreements with publishers to be “unfair”. Saying the agreements did not allow access to the “online search syndication services market”, the CCI asked Google to remove the said restrictions and pay a penalty under Section 27 of the Competition Act. Lahiri compares this to the DLF case, where the real-estate consortium was asked to pay Rs 630 crore for “unfair” terms in their agreements with buyers. Touching again on the theme of inn ovation versus competition, he empha- January 22, 2018 Rs 60 www.outlookindia.com madman murugan is now nation’s padman R N I N O. 7044/ 1961 twitter.com/outlookindia facebook.com/outlookindia youtube.com/outlookmagazine digimag.outlookindia.com 8 904150 800010 0 3 26 February 2018 OUTLOOK 57

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