Why India has ordered yet another probe against Google

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has ordered another probe against Google for alleged unfair revenue sharing terms with regard to news content. According to the chief national competition regulator, the probe comes after the News Broadcasters & Digital Association (NBDA) filed a complaint.  The case will be clubbed with two other matters with essentially the same allegations. The NBDA comprises national and regional private news and current affairs broadcasters and digital news media entities as its members. Let’s take a closer look at the case, what happens next and Google’s response The News Broadcasters and Digital Associations (NBDA) has filed a complaint against Google’s parent entities Alphabet Inc, Google LLC, Google India Pvt Ltd, Google Ireland Ltd, and Google Asia Pacific Pte Ltd under Section 19 (1) (a) of the Competition Act, 2002, as per Exchange4Media. As per Mint, the NBDA alleges that its members were compelled to give Google news content in order to give their web links higher priority on its Search Engine Result Page (SERP). The complaint claims Google profits off the content without giving its members adequate compensation, as per the report. The claim alleges that Google built services such as Google News, Google Discover, and Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) by taking advantage of users’ reliance on the search engine it offers for referral traffic. The search engine major provides news content to user through Google Search and through news aggregator vertical, Google News. “Members of the Informant are forced to share their news content to Google to prioritise their web links in the Search Engine Result Page (SERP) of Google. Thus, Google free rides on the content of the members of Informant without giving them adequate compensation,” NBDA said. In a four-page order dated 6 October, the CCI said the allegations are substantially the same as that of the matter which is already being probed by the regulator, as per Outlook.

The CCI thus ordered the Director General (DG), its probe arm, to club the matters and submit a consolidated investigation report.

Kate Beddoe, director of Google’s News Partnerships in APAC, speaking to Indian Express on 10 October_,_ said Google works best with the news industry when the partnership is based on common goals. “We have talked about quality content, we have talked about digital sustainability, we haven’t touched on nature of changing user behaviours and how do we make sure the content is reaching people regardless of format. I think that’s one of the areas we really need to focus on,” Beddoe told the newspaper. Beddoe, a former journalist, said India was the first country where Google looked to learn from its experiences with news publishers to become a better partner. She said the most important thing was “to find the right balance of how can I help quality news reach an audience in a meaningful way. But in order to do that, how do we find the business models that will allow that quality content to exist and reach audiences?” The Canadian government in May 2022 tabled legislation that aims to introduce transparency in sharing of revenue between digital news publishers and intermediary platforms such as Google and Facebook. Last February, Australia demanded that Google pay for news. The Australian Parliament passed The News Media and Digital platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code, which told tech giants and news organisations to negotiate payment deals and forced Facebook and Google to invest tens of millions of dollars in digital content. Beddoe said the Australian experience led to the launch of Showcase — a Google News product that gives more control to the publishers on what they want to show readers — happening very quickly in India “because we had learnt the lesson that we need to show up and we need to be listening”.

Google has over 90 publishers on Showcase at the moment, as per the report.

“Others have very different needs. And so, we are committed to responding to the needs of Indian publishers in India in a way that works. I think when you have government involved, it becomes more challenging to recognise and respond to those nuances.” With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.