Google’s ‘Search Bias’ in India: What the Debate Is and How the CCI Got It Wrong

Abstract

Google has faced charges of abuse of dominant position in many jurisdictions across the world including India. One of the primary grounds for this charge has been favouring its own vertical or sponsored content by placing it more prominently in the search results page also known as “search bias.” The Competition Commission of India’s decision on “search bias” which came a few months after the European Commission’s Comparison Shopping decision has been a subject of much controversy not least because it took a stance quite different from that taken by the EC. This article analyses the CCI’s decision and critiques it in two ways. First, the internal inconsistencies and logical fallacies in the decision are pointed out. Three search features of Google were under the lens and this article concludes that seemingly different standards have been applied for assessing each of these three features. Second, the article refers to the academic literature available on the topic to categorise the issues in the case into three primary debates and uses this three-pronged framework to examine the CCI’s decision. Applying the framework to the case it is concluded that the CCI at best did a partial analysis of the issues which formed the crux of the case.