Competition Commission dismisses complaint against Google India

Competition Commission of India dismisses complaint against Google favoring Truecaller, citing lack of evidence of competition law violation.

The Competition Commission of India has dismissed a complaint against Google India alleging the tech giant abused its dominant position to favour Truecaller in the market for caller ID and spam protection apps, as it found no evidence of violation of competition law.

While dismissing the complaint, the fair trade regulator said, "The Commission finds that no prima facie case of contravention of the provisions of Section 4 of the Act is made out against Google in the instant matter".

Section 4 of the Competition Act, deals with the abuse of dominant position.

The ruling came on a complaint filed by Rachna Khaira (informant) accusing Google of granting exclusive access to Truecaller to share private contact information while prohibiting other apps from doing the same.

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Further, she alleged that this practice has distorted the market and created a monopoly for Truecaller. The informant also alleged that Google's developer policy prohibits unauthorised disclosure of non-public contacts, and Truecaller’s privacy policy, to which she argued allowed the sharing of such information.

Further, Khaira alleged that Google favoured Truecaller due to commercial arrangements involving Google’s cloud storage and advertising services.