India launches Antitrust probe against Google?

[sujoy12]

The competition regulator on Tuesday ordered an investigation into the conduct of Google in the smart TV segment over allegations that,
The company's agreement with smart TV manufacturers restricted the development and usage of alternative version of Android.

     COMPLAINTS
The complainant filed by antitrust lawyer Kshitiz Arya and Purushottam Anand in may last year alleges that Google bars any company that acquired the licence for this Android TV platform from working with this competitors.
“If a TV manufacturer intends to use Google's operating system, you have to enter into certain agreements.
These agreements prohibit you from manufacturing any other divice, whether it is televisions or phone on any forked version of Android,” a person involved in the matter told mint in October.

it's going to bad impact Google?

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[Sithara007]

Don't know the details of this case, but India is not a major market for Google. Only a small part of their revenues come from India and the actual values are low due to very high tax rates. On top of that, even if Google is slapped with a financial penalty, they can appeal to the courts. And recently the courts have taken a solid stance against the government in most of the issues. In the end it will be similar to the lawsuit between the Indian government and Vodafone, which is still not resolved (after more than a decade).

[Xinarae*]

The competition commission of india the country's antitrust agency has launched an investigation against google for defending rumors against the allegations of a defense competition group. Allegations of discriminatory behavior the source said the CCI was not in favor of any company before though it may have been helped by the actions of bharatmatrem. Google said in a statement that it is fully cooperating with CCI, and that its products are in line with competition laws in india google has taken advantage of its influential position in the market.

[Obito]

Don't know the details of this case, but India is not a major market for Google. Only a small part of their revenues come from India and the actual values are low due to very high tax rates. On top of that, even if Google is slapped with a financial penalty, they can appeal to the courts. And recently the courts have taken a solid stance against the government in most of the issues. In the end it will be similar to the lawsuit between the Indian government and Vodafone, which is still not resolved (after more than a decade).

That's pretty surprising that Google isn't a big market in India given that India is the second largest populated country in the world, I think it's pretty awesome that a considered major market is not dominant in a region. I am curious as to which one is at the top if it's not Google? I think that they should start doing this because they might not admit but they are spying on us no matter what.

[davis196]

Are there any TV manufacturers in India?I've always thought that most of the big TV manufacturers are located in Eastern Asia-China,Taiwan,South Korea,Japan,Indonesia,etc...
Anyway,I think that Google simply wanted to protect it's patents and intellectual property from theft.
Intellectual property theft is a major problem that western corporations are facing in Asia.
I can't see any major competitors against the Android TV operating system.Almost every smart device nowadays uses Android.

[stompix]

That's pretty surprising that Google isn't a big market in India given that India is the second largest populated country in the world, I think it's pretty awesome that a considered major market is not dominant in a region.

Size doesn't matter when 90% of the population is dirt poor

Nilakantan explained that India has over 200 million households, of which 170 million have a TV - 100 million of those are CRT TV and 70 million have a flat monitor.Smart TV penetration is only 20 million.

By comparison, germans alone have purchased in a single year 6.6 million smart TVs, with just 1/20 of the population.

I can't see any major competitors against the Android TV operating system.Almost every smart device nowadays uses Android.

Nope, Tizen and WebOS are beating the crap out of google android in the smart tv competition.

[jaberwock]

The complainant filed by antitrust lawyer Kshitiz Arya and Purushottam Anand in may last year alleges that Google bars any company that acquired the licence for this Android TV platform from working with this competitors.
“If a TV manufacturer intends to use Google's operating system, you have to enter into certain agreements.
These agreements prohibit you from manufacturing any other divice, whether it is televisions or phone on any forked version of Android,” a person involved in the matter told mint in October.

it's going to bad impact Google?

Well, this is just Google to have the upper hand in the market. And in a case like this, I don’t know if these people are going to win this case. It’s how Google wants to do their own Business, they don’t want their manufactures working with other names, so they get them to sign a deal which is not a forced deal. If the TV manufacturers sign it, then that’s because they want it that way, it’s as simple as that. Nobody is being forced to sign it.

So, I think it’s up to the TV manufacturers to say whether they want it or not, because having only one brand hinders them from having varieties, so it’s only going to affect them. They should be the ones to say whether they don’t want to such deal. And a way for them to do it is to stop signing deals with Google, and start working with other companies that will allow them make use of alternatives, rather than Google that doesn’t allow such. Maybe by the time Google notices that they are losing out in the market, they will make an adjustment.

[mu_enrico]

Link to the article.

I agree with the antitrust breach when the device must have some pre-installed apps (aka bloatware) and Google play store. In my opinion, the OS should come clean (OS only) and the manufacturers are free to pick pre-installed apps.

I recently bought a cheap tv box, that came with rooted android, and I'm pretty surprised lot's of apk cannot be installed on rooted device, crash, etc. I thought it's just like windows OS when I can pick any apps install it, delete it, use cracked version, etc.

[Fesatmas]

still remember the story of a person from India who created competition with Google, namely by making Origin. and it didn't last long. until now Google has not been able to enter the Indian market freely.
and with this latest case the Indian investigative agency will greatly benefit but on the other hand will they completely block the movement of Google.
At least we don't take India too seriously trying to push Google so aggressively.

[dothebeats]

I don't think this antitrust probe would get anything significant done. First and foremost, Google has the right to impose their own stipulations on the contract. The other party has the right to agree or not to those conditions, so there really is no antitrust violations done by Google, well at least on how I see it. They could just look for other alternatives that offer the base OS without having to install some default bloatwares of the OS manufacturer.

This'll not be bad for Google, and if anything, they'd just shrug this off and be confident about winning the case.

[avikz]

The competition regulator on Tuesday ordered an investigation into the conduct of Google in the smart TV segment over allegations that,
The company's agreement with smart TV manufacturers restricted the development and usage of alternative version of Android.

     COMPLAINTS
The complainant filed by antitrust lawyer Kshitiz Arya and Purushottam Anand in may last year alleges that Google bars any company that acquired the licence for this Android TV platform from working with this competitors.
“If a TV manufacturer intends to use Google's operating system, you have to enter into certain agreements.
These agreements prohibit you from manufacturing any other divice, whether it is televisions or phone on any forked version of Android,” a person involved in the matter told mint in October.

it's going to bad impact Google?

That's a serious allegation! If a TV manufacturer enters into such an agreement with Google, then they simply can't expand their product offerings! How silly is that! Manufacturers are anyways paying Google to use their operating system. O such kind of prohibition doesn't make sense!

I wasn't aware about this case, but I will try to fetch more information about it now. Indian is a very important market for Google so I am sure they will try to find an amicable solution even out of court

[worldofcoins]

it's going to bad impact Google?

I don't think there's any problem here, It's natural for a company to exert their control when there's a product they know anyone can't beat anytime soon.

Google is also trying hard for companies not to consider another OS while they're using Google OS.

I only have one doubt that is - If companies break the contract in future then what will happen to the products they've previously made with google OS,

Will google void or limit that product in the future through some forced update on the device? - If this happens then it will be a bad impact for google but doing so will completely be not breaking the law unless written in the contract.

[Gozie51]

I think countries are beginning to look into social media and how it impacts on the country. Perhaps Google wants some exclusive right but that should not be against the will of the India people. Anyway, is a matter before the court and better for the court to decide on. We don't really need to discuss matters in court in the real sense.

[wxa7115]

The competition regulator on Tuesday ordered an investigation into the conduct of Google in the smart TV segment over allegations that,
The company's agreement with smart TV manufacturers restricted the development and usage of alternative version of Android.

     COMPLAINTS
The complainant filed by antitrust lawyer Kshitiz Arya and Purushottam Anand in may last year alleges that Google bars any company that acquired the licence for this Android TV platform from working with this competitors.
“If a TV manufacturer intends to use Google's operating system, you have to enter into certain agreements.
These agreements prohibit you from manufacturing any other divice, whether it is televisions or phone on any forked version of Android,” a person involved in the matter told mint in October.

it's going to bad impact Google?

I wish them luck but Google is probably going to hire the best lawyers they can and this is going to be very difficult to win in the court, however while the chances are low I see with good eyes that finally some governments are finally realizing the huge monopoly that is Google.

Google, Facebook and Amazon are huge monopolies and in theory those companies should have been divided long time ago but since they can bribe the powerful this has not happened, I would like to see this happening in the US, but I doubt we will see it any time soon as those companies have agreements with security agencies and most likely give them for free all the information they have in exchange to be allowed to remain in their current forms.

[boyptc]

I don't know if Google should be threatened with that probe. What I want is that Google to improve their service.

My smart TV isn't even working very well. Although on the technical side, this is far from there.

I wish them luck but Google is probably going to hire the best lawyers they can and this is going to be very difficult to win in the court, however while the chances are low I see with good eyes that finally some governments are finally realizing the huge monopoly that is Google.

This is for sure and that's why Google will just have themselves defended by those lawyers unless they care with the complain.

[Hydrogen]

Anti trust is a strange thing. Western powers in the USA and europe will happily penalize their own native business in the name of anti trust. While russia and asia would never do such things to harm their own private sector.

If someone cared enough about this to read news stories about anti trust lawsuits and fines over the past 20 years. They might realize anti trust suits are exclusively utilized to penalize and punish only western business.

In this case, india may have realized they can improve their smart TV manufacturing market share by filing lawsuits against american smart TV manufacturers. Normally, the USA would retaliate to protect its own market share. Trump would probably not allow india to attack american businesses without retaliation. With Biden and Harris in office, things could be a little different.

[semobo]

Android is open source but Google is not so if any smart TV wants to get Google services in their devices they have to agree with the terms of Google no matter what it is. Anyway these laws are not going to affect the Google company since they are the monopoly of Android market service.

[peter0425]

The competition regulator on Tuesday ordered an investigation into the conduct of Google in the smart TV segment over allegations that,
The company's agreement with smart TV manufacturers restricted the development and usage of alternative version of Android.

     COMPLAINTS
The complainant filed by antitrust lawyer Kshitiz Arya and Purushottam Anand in may last year alleges that Google bars any company that acquired the licence for this Android TV platform from working with this competitors.
“If a TV manufacturer intends to use Google's operating system, you have to enter into certain agreements.
These agreements prohibit you from manufacturing any other divice, whether it is televisions or phone on any forked version of Android,” a person involved in the matter told mint in October.

it's going to bad impact Google?

is there some links about this mate?

Anyway Google has been there standing for long years and this wont make them that bad just because India is having issue towards them.

eventually this will be settled because lets admit it , the world needs google .