Case No. 68/2010. Case: Eximcorp India Pvt. Ltd. Vs Google India Pvt Ltd.. Competition Commision of India
Case Number | Case No. 68/2010 |
Issue | Competition Act, 2002 - Sections 3, 4, 19, 26(1) and 26(2) |
Citation | 2011 CompLR 59 (CCI) |
Judgement Date | February 15, 2011 |
Court | Competition Commision of India |
Judgment:
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The present information has been filed by Eximcorp India Pvt Ltd (hereinafter referred to as "Informant") under Section 19 of the Competition Act, 2002 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act") against Google India Pvt Ltd (hereinafter referred to as "Opposite Party") for alleging abuse of the dominant position by the company which is engaged in publishing advertisements of the enterprises on its search engine under the banner AdWords.
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The allegations as stated in the information, in brief, are as under:
1.1 The informant is engaged in the business of trading in wood and wood panel products in India and took the service of opposite party for advertising his products.
1.2 Opposite Party is in the business of running the Internet search engines in India under the name and style www.google.co.in, a regional search engine dedicated to Indian web pages. One of the commercial products offered by google is 'AdWords'. Opposite Party under "AdWords" invites enterprises to advertise on their search engine. Whenever any user of the search engine key in words, advertisements of the enterprises of that key word related appear on the right side of the page.
1.3 The Informant has advertised about his company and its products on the Google search engine "AdWords". The informant has opted to pay by cheques in advance. Opposite Party insisted that a proof of payment in the form of attested bank statement to be furnished to them.
1.4 Dissatisfied with the practice of handling the payments by the google, the informant requested to close its account and return the unused advances lying with google on 30-09-2010.in response to its request the Opposite Party has asked certain confidential banking details like the type of the account, IFSC code, Swift code etc., As the refund of payments is done from Ireland, the informant would incur a cost of Rs. 2000 towards SWIFT charges. Further, Opposite Party refuses to carry out the transfer of funds without being informed the private relationship detail between the bank and its client.
1.5 The informant has stated that for the Ad services the customer is required to pay through the process of bidding per click. Opposite Party has complete discretion in placing the web page of the client in first or second page of search results. In this aspect informant alleged that the Opposite Party's business practices are inappropriate and discriminatory in nature. These activities are without any transparency and...
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