CIC DIRECTS ENQUIRY AGAINST GOOGLE PAY FOR ALLEGED ABUSE OF DOMINANT POSITION

10^TH NOVEMBER

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has ordered Google to allegedly abusing its leading position to promote its payments application, GooglePay. Through its control over the Android Operating System (OS) and play store, the petitioner has alleged that Google is supporting Google Pay over other challenging applications to the weakness of both apps, promoting its customers to pay through UPI. As per the informer, this led to an abuse of its dominant position by Google and its parent company in violation of Section 4 of the Act's various provisions.

The CCI said that the instruction is of the prima facie view that the ‘Opposite Parties'—Google, Alphabet Inc.—have broken various provisions of Section 4 of the Act. It guarantees a detailed investigation.

Google and it's parent company Alphabet Inc. said responding to the allegations said that google does not support the GPay app in Play’s search ranking and also alleged the allegations to be false.

Author: Shweta Singh