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The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has approved a ₹20.24 crore settlement proposal from Google in the Android TV antitrust case, marking a significant development in one of the high-profile competition law proceedings in the country. The decision was taken through a majority order under Section 48A(3) of the Competition Act, 2002, and the recently notified Competition Commission of India (Settlement) Regulations, 2024.

The case originated from a complaint filed by two individuals— Kshitiz Arya and Purushottam Anand—under Section 19(1)(a) of the Act. The complaint alleged that Google LLC, along with its Indian subsidiary Google India Private Limited, Xiaomi Technology India Private Limited, and TCL India Holding Private Limited, had engaged in anti-competitive practices in the Android TV ecosystem.

The primary allegation was that Google abused its dominant position by compelling Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to enter into restrictive agreements. These included mandatory bundling of the Google Play Store with the Android TV operating system and the enforcement of Anti-Fragmentation Agreements that barred OEMs from developing or using modified (forked) versions of Android. Such practices, according to the complaint, blocked market access, reduced competition, and stifled innovation, thereby violating Section 4 of the Competition Act.

Following an investigation ordered under Section 26(1) of the Act, the Director General found that Google held a dominant position in the market for licensable Smart TV operating systems and app stores for Android Smart TVs in India. The probe highlighted that Google’s Television App Distribution Agreement (TADA) and Android Compatibility Commitments (ACC) unfairly tied Google services—such as YouTube and the Play Store—forcing OEMs to pre-install them, which further entrenched Google’s market dominance.

However, allegations relating to refusal to deal and exclusive supply under Section 3(4) of the Act were not substantiated.

Google responded by filing a settlement application under Section 48A of the Act. In line with regulatory procedures, the Commission sought objections and suggestions from 45 concerned stakeholders. After reviewing the feedback and terms of the proposal, the CCI acknowledged Google’s commitment to major structural changes under its newly introduced “New India Agreement.”

As per the agreement, Google will now offer a standalone license for the Play Store and Play Services for Android Smart TVs, eliminating the earlier requirement for bundling or default app placements. It also waives the need for a valid ACC for devices without Google apps, allowing OEMs to develop and market forked versions of Android without violating the terms of TADA.

A Google spokesperson stated that, "Google is committed to abiding by applicable local laws in every country where we operate and are grateful to the CCI for the opportunity to engage and present our case. We also thank the CCI for instituting processes which enable constructive engagements between companies and the market, allowing for continued investment and growth."

Taking into account the gravity and impact of the violations, and applying a 15% settlement discount, the Commission finalized the settlement amount at ₹20.24 crore.

This marks a significant regulatory precedent and is among the first major settlements under the 2024 Settlement Regulations, signaling a shift towards negotiated resolutions in antitrust enforcement.


Google settles Android TV antitrust probe with ₹20.24 crore payout to CCI

A U.S. District Court has delivered a verdict in a major antitrust case, finding Google liable for monopolizing key segments of the digital advertising technology market. The ruling, which followed a three-week bench trial, concluded that Google unlawfully acquired and maintained monopoly power in the markets for publisher ad servers and ad exchanges for open-web display advertising. Furthermore, the court found that Google illegally tied its publisher ad server, DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP), with its ad exchange, AdX.

The ruling, which marks Google’s latest antitrust loss following its Search case, states that the tech giant’s anti-competitive practices in two key markets “substantially harmed” publishers and users on the web. According to the U.S. government, Google collects monopoly profits at the expense of publishers and advertisers, who suffer from a degraded experience with limited alternatives.

Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia said in a 115-page ruling that Google broke the law to build its dominance over the largely invisible system of technology that places advertisements across the web. The Justice Department and a coalition of states had sued Google, arguing that its monopoly in ad technology allowed the company to charge higher prices and take a larger cut of each sale.

The court found that Google engaged in unlawful tying by conditioning effective access to its powerful AdX exchange (the tying product) on the use of its DFP ad server (the tied product). Specifically, Google restricted AdX’s ability to submit real-time bids—essential for publishers to maximize revenue—only to publishers using DFP.

AdX provides access to a unique and vast pool of advertisers using AdWords (especially small and medium-sized businesses attracted through Google Search), publishers felt compelled to use DFP to avoid losing significant revenue, effectively locking them into Google’s sell-side stack.

This tying arrangement, the court ruled, stifled competition in the publisher ad server market, contributing significantly to DFP maintaining over a 90% market share and forcing rival ad servers to struggle or exit the market.

“In addition to depriving rivals of the ability to compete, this exclusionary conduct substantially harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web,” said Judge Brinkema, who also dismissed one portion of the government’s case.

Lee-Anne Mulholland, Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Google, commented: “We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half. The court found that our advertiser tools and our acquisitions, such as DoubleClick, don’t harm competition."

“We disagree with the court’s decision regarding our publisher tools. Publishers have many options, and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable, and effective.”

Earlier, US President Donald Trump had signalled that his administration will continue taking a tough stance on antitrust for the tech industry. 

U.S. Court finds Google guilty of monopolizing digital AdTech market

For Microsoft employees, the start of 2025 has proved to be rather dim. The company has confirmed a small round of job cuts across various departments, according to a report by CNBC. Microsoft stated that these layoffs are performance-based, targeting employees who haven’t met expectations.

“At Microsoft, we prioritise high-performing talent,” a company spokesperson told CNBC. “We are constantly focused on helping people learn and grow. When individuals are not performing, we take the necessary action.”

The report suggests that around 1% of Microsoft’s global workforce is being let go in this latest round of layoffs. As of June 2024, Microsoft employed approximately 2.28 lakh people worldwide. This is not the first time Microsoft has reduced its workforce. In 2023, the company announced a large-scale layoff of 10,000 employees, marking the start of its restructuring efforts. While job cuts have continued since then, the pace has slowed compared to the initial wave.

The broader tech industry also saw significant layoffs in 2024, with lakhs of jobs lost globally. Companies like Google and Microsoft had already warned employees about job reductions. Although it’s still early days for 2025, Microsoft’s latest layoffs may signal further workforce adjustments in the months to come.

Microsoft confirms job cuts across departments, cites 'performance issues'

Google's levy of 10-30% service fee on payments for app purchases via its Play Store has proved to be a challenge, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) said. This has highlighted that this service fee has crimped app developers' ability to improve service quality and also produce better technology.

The competition watchdog commented this on the concluding day of its arguments at the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT). The parent company of Google (Alphabet inc.) had earlier appealed against the order of CCI.

Back in 2024, The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) resumed its final hearing on Google’s appeal against the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) ₹936 crore penalty on September 10. The tech giant was penalised in October 2022 for allegedly abusing its dominant position through restrictive billing practices on Google Play Store.




Play Store rules hurting developers, CCI tells NCLAT

In a significant roundtable meeting of prominent CEOs of Tech Companies with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Google CEO Sundar Pichai praised the Indian leader's vision for a digitally empowered nation.

Speaking after the meeting, Pichai emphasized PM Modi's dedication to the #DigitalIndia initiative, stating, "The Prime Minister has been focused on transforming India, with his vision for a digital future."

Pichai expressed pride in Google's decision to manufacture its Pixel phones in India, highlighting the PM's push for more domestic production and design innovation. 

"The PM has been focused on transforming India," Pichai stated, emphasizing Modi's vision for leveraging artificial intelligence to improve various sectors, including healthcare, education, and agriculture. He noted that the Prime Minister is also concerned with bolstering India's infrastructure, mentioning initiatives related to data centers and energy.

Pichai revealed that Google is heavily investing in AI in India, establishing several programs and partnerships aimed at maximizing the technology's benefits for the Indian populace. "He has always challenged all of us to do more for India," Pichai remarked, referring to Modi's call for increased contributions to the country's technological landscape.

As the dialogue around AI continues to evolve, Pichai's comments reflect a strong commitment to ensuring that technological advancements serve the people of India. "The Prime Minister has a clear vision for the opportunities that AI will create," he concluded, reiterating the importance of aligning technological progress with the welfare of the nation.

PM Modi always challenged us to do more: Sundar Pichai

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), in their study, has claimed that nine companies, including Meta, YouTube, and TikTok, engaged in extensive surveillance of consumers, including minors, collecting and sharing more personal information than most users realised.

The report states that the sites, which mostly offer free services, profited from the data by using it for advertising that targets specific users based on demographics. The companies also failed to adequately protect users, especially children and teenagers.

The FTC said it began its study nearly four years ago to provide the first comprehensive look into the opaque business practices of some of the biggest online platforms that have built multibillion-dollar advertising businesses using consumer data. “Surveillance practices can endanger people’s privacy, threaten their freedoms, and expose them to a host of harms, from identity theft to stalking,” said Lina Kahn, the FTC’s chair, in a statement.

Efforts by the companies to regulate themselves have also failed, the FTC concluded in its report. “Self-regulation has been a failure,” it added.

According to a New York Times report, Google, which owns YouTube, stated, “We have the strictest privacy policy in our industry. We never sell people’s personal information, and we don’t use sensitive information to serve ads,” said José Castañeda, a spokesman for Google. He added, “We prohibit ad personalisation for users under 18, and we don’t personalise ads to anyone watching ‘made for kid content’ on YouTube.”

In December 2020, the agency opened its inquiry into the nine companies that operate 13 platforms. The FTC requested data from each company for operations between 2019 and 2020 and then studied how the companies had collected, used, and retained that data.

The FTC found that the companies voraciously consumed data about users and often purchased information about people who weren’t users through data brokers. They also gathered information from accounts linked to other services.

Most of the companies collected users' age, gender, and the language they spoke. Many platforms also obtained information on education, income, and marital status. The companies didn’t provide users with easy ways to opt out of data collection and often retained sensitive information for much longer than consumers would expect, the agency said.

The companies used data to create profiles of users, often merging the information they gathered with details about habits collected on other sites, to serve targeted advertisements.

The agency also found that many sites claimed they restricted access to users under the age of 13, yet many children remained on the platforms. Teenagers were also treated like adults on many of the apps, subjecting them to the same data collection as adults. Many of the companies couldn’t tell the FTC how much data they were collecting, according to the study.

'Meta, YouTube and TikTok engaged in vast surveillance', says FTC

Google won a court case on Wednesday against a 1.49 billion euro ($1.66 billion) European Union antitrust fine imposed in 2019 that targeted its online advertising business. The EU's General Court said it was throwing out the 2019 penalty imposed by the European Commission, which is the 27-nation bloc's top antitrust enforcer. 

Regulators had alleged that Google — as a dominant online ad broker — illegally prevented rivals such as Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. from placing ads on third-party websites. 

"The General Court annuls the Commission's decision in its entirety," the court said in a press release. The commission's ruling applied to a narrow portion of Google's ad business: ads that the U.S. tech giant sold next to Google search results on third-party websites.

Regulators had accused Google of inserting exclusivity clauses in its contracts that barred these websites from running similarly placed ads sold by Google's rivals. The commission said when it issued the penalty that Google's behavior resulted in advertisers and website owners having less choice and likely facing higher prices that would be passed on to consumers.

But the General Court said the commission "committed errors" when it assessed those clauses. The commission failed to demonstrate that Google's contracts deterred innovation, harmed consumers or helped the company hold on to and strengthen its dominant position in national online search advertising markets, it said.

This ruling can still be appealed at the bloc’s top tribunal, the Court of Justice.

Google wins court case against $1.66 billion EU antitrust fine

European Union privacy regulator has now opened an inquiry into Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) model, Pathways Language Model 2 (PaLM2). The regulator is probing whether the search engine of the tech giant is has adequately protected European Union users' personal data before using it to help develop its foundational AI Model.

Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC), the lead EU regulator for most of the top U.S. internet firms said that the probe concerned the Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), opens new tab unit's Pathways Language Model 2 (PaLM 2).

As Google's European operations are headquartered in Dublin, the Irish DPC serves as the tech giant's lead authority under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the EU's strict data privacy framework. The commission stated that the investigation will focus on whether Google properly evaluated whether PaLM2’s data processing presents a “high risk to the rights and freedoms of individuals” in the EU.

Similarly, Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, suspended plans to use content from European users to train its latest language model. This move followed extensive discussions with Irish regulators, highlighting the pressure tech giants face in ensuring compliance with EU data laws. 

Other countries in the EU have also taken action. Italy’s data privacy regulator temporarily banned ChatGPT in 2022 due to privacy violations, only allowing its return after OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, agreed to implement measures addressing the regulator's concerns.

EU regulators to probe Google over its AI model, raises privacy concerns

One month after a judge declared Google’s search engine an illegal monopoly, the tech giant is facing another antitrust lawsuit, this time focused on its advertising technology. This latest lawsuit, filed by the Joe Biden administration, has the potential to reshape the global Adtech industry.

In court, the Department of Justice, joined by several states, argued that Google has built and maintains a monopoly over online advertising technology. Regulators claim that Google controls both the buying and selling sides of online ads, allowing the company to keep up to 36 cents for every dollar spent. They also allege that Google dominates the ad exchange market, which connects advertisers with publishers.

“It’s worth saying the quiet part out loud,” said Justice Department attorney Julia Tarver Wood. “One monopoly is bad enough, but what we have here is a trifecta of monopolies,” she added, as quoted by the Associated Press.

Google, however, argues that the lawsuit is based on outdated technology. Google’s attorney, Karen Dunn, likened the government’s case to “a time capsule with a Blackberry, an iPod, and a Blockbuster video card.” She cautioned that actions taken against Google may not help small businesses and could instead benefit other large tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and TikTok.

Notably, Google’s revenue from its ad tech division has actually decreased in recent years, dropping from $31.7 billion in 2021 to $31.3 billion in 2023, according to its annual reports.

The trial, which began on Monday in Alexandria, Virginia, is being overseen by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema.

This case follows a recent ruling that declared Google’s search engine a monopoly, along with another case where its Android app store was found to be monopolistic. The government has yet to propose specific remedies for the search engine ruling.

In the Virginia trial, witnesses for the government are expected to include executives from major newspaper publishers and online news sites. They argue that Google’s practices harm publishers by imposing high fees, which forces them to place more ads on their sites or put content behind paywalls.

Tim Wolfe, an executive at Gannett Co., testified that despite the high fees, Gannett feels compelled to use Google’s ad tech products because they provide access to a large pool of advertisers.

In a 2023 blog post, Google stated, “No one is forced to use our advertising technologies—they choose to use them because they work.” The company also highlighted increasing competition in the ad industry as evidence that the market is still dynamic and not solely dominated by Google.

Google disputes the claims of excessive fees and argues that its integrated technology ensures faster ad delivery and improved security. Additionally, the company asserts that the government’s case fails to account for the rise of mobile and social media advertising.

Google faces new antitrust battle over advertising tech monopoly

In an advisory issued on September 3, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) urged all intermediaries to promptly and proactively remove fake content, following a Bombay High Court directive. 

The HC required Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and Telegram to delete all false information, including altered videos and profiles related to the National Stock Exchange (NSE), within 10 hours of receiving a complaint.

"The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology wishes to remind intermediaries of their duty to swiftly remove any prohibited material at the earliest opportunity. Intermediaries are advised to complete the takedown process, where necessary, as proactively as possible without waiting for the time limits set in the Rules, which serve only as an upper threshold.”

The advisory referred to the Information Technology Act and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. Under the IT Act, IT Rules 2021, and the 2015 Supreme Court ruling in the Shreya Singhal case, intermediaries are required to take down "unlawful information" within 36 hours of receiving "actual knowledge," either via a court order or a notice from the "Appropriate Government".

In July this year, India’s National Stock Exchange (NSE) warned investors about deepfake videos falsely featuring its CEO, Ashishkumar Chauhan, in some investment and stock advisory videos. 

Recently, the Mumbai police filed a case against the Maharashtra Youth Congress’ social media account and 16 others for allegedly sharing a deepfake video of Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Multiple well-known personalities, including Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Elon Musk, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Tom Cruise, Scarlett Johansson, and Emma Watson, have also fallen victim to deepfake videos on the internet. Similar such cases have been reported widely across the country.


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