The Competition Commission of India (CCI), on Tuesday, slapped Google with a fine of Rs936.44 crore for abusing its dominant position with respect to Play Store policies and directed the company to cease and desist from unfair business practices.
Now, Google is reviewing their decisions in response to the recent fines imposed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) on the search giant.
This was the second time in less than a week that CCI fined Google. On 20th October CCI had imposed a penalty of Rs 1,337.76 crore.
One of the spokespersons of Google responded in line with the action taken by CCI. He said that the company has remained committed to its users and developers and reviewing the decision to evaluate the next steps.
The company has also stated that Indian developers have benefited from their technology, security, consumer protections, and flexibility that Android and Google Play provide, reported The Hindu.
“Low costs and our model has helped India’s digital transformation and expanded access for hundreds of millions of Indians, ” Google further added in their response.
In its last action against the tech giant, the market watchdog criticised Google’s existing policy of mandatory usage of GPBS for paid apps and in-app purchases.
This restricts the app developers from using other alternative payment processors of their choice, CCI noted.
It also found this practice discriminatory as Google does not use GPBS for its own applications like YouTube.
In its fresh ruling, the regulator found Google to be dominant in the markets for licensable OS for smart mobile devices and market for app stores for Android smart mobile OS, in India.