Following a suit filed by a Vishal Gupta against Google for the misuse of the monopoly in the online search advertising space, Competition Commission of India (CCI) has initiated a new investigation into the matter.
The suit states that Google Adwords accounts are “extremely opaque and not transparent.” Gupta’s companies have set up a remote technology support business and its Adwords account was activated in January 2013.
Gupta claims that Google has suspended several remote tech support companies including his venture from the Adwords program and Google promoted its own business in “an unfair, discriminatory and uncompetitive manner.”
The commission had asked the director general to conduct an investigation on the issue and complete it within a 60-day period in its order dated April 15. In addition, the director general was also asked to investigate the role of persons who are in charge of the conduct of their businesses and are responsible to the companies.
CCI has stated that the investigation was commissioned in order to find out the nature and impact of the problems that made Google to suspend ads of the RTS industry in order to determine whether it was legitimate for the company to terminate their accounts without formal explanations.
Back in 2012, advocacy group CUTS International filed a suit against the search giant accusing it of anti-competitive and discriminatory practices. Following this suit, matrimony.com Pvt Ltd, a matrimonial website also sued Google for failure to comply with the Director General’s instructions. CCI had imposed a fine of Rs. 1 crore and asked for the documents and information regarding it to be submitted.
