Google is hit with antitrust investigation in India

India’s antitrust watchdog has ordered an investigation into Google, following antitrust complaints filed by news publishers alleging that the search giant abuses its dominance in the aggregation of news by imposing unfair conditions.

On Friday the Competition Commission of India said that it is its initial view that Google is violating antitrust laws, referencing new regulation in Australia and France where the tech giant was required to negotiate content licensing deals with news publishers, the focus being addressing the “bargaining power imbalance between the two and the resultant imposition of unfair conditions by Google.”

The CCi ordered the investigation following a complaint filed by the Digital News Publishers Association, which represents some of the largest news outlets in India.

The association claimed that its members get more than 50 of traffic from search engines, where Google dominates. Google’s search dominance places it at a position to impose unfair conditions on news publishers.