The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has rejected a plea accusing tech giant Google of abusing its dominant market position to favor Truecaller. The anti-trust regulator concluded that there was no evidence to support claims of competition law violations in this case.
In its order, the CCI stated, “Given the facts and circumstances of the present case, 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, 2002, is designed to prevent dominant firms from abusing their market position.
The commission observed that the complainant’s allegations were unsubstantiated and that the informant failed to provide evidence to prima facie establish that Google was giving preferential treatment to Truecaller. The CCI noted, “Based on the experiment run by the informant, it appears that users have voluntarily provided the contact details data to Truecaller. Therefore, the allegations of the informant that Truecaller is engaging in ‘unauthorised publishing’ or that Google has allowed any preferential access to Truecaller do not appear to be substantiated.”
The decision came after Rachna Khaira filed a complaint alleging that Google was granting exclusive access to Truecaller to share private contact information of users while prohibiting other apps from doing the same. The complaint claimed, “By doing this, Google is favoring Truecaller and distorting the market for caller ID and spam protection apps thereby providing a monopoly space to Truecaller.”
Khaira also alleged that Google was giving preferential treatment to Truecaller due to their commercial arrangements, wherein Truecaller is using Google’s cloud storage service and Google Ad service. However, the CCI found no merit in these claims and dismissed the plea, reinforcing that there was no prima facie evidence of Google engaging in anti-competitive practices in favor of Truecaller.
This ruling underscores the CCI’s commitment to ensuring fair competition while dismissing unsubstantiated claims that lack credible evidence. It also highlights the importance of concrete proof when alleging market abuse by dominant firms.
