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CCI Penalty On Foreign Tech Firms Will Boost Indigenous Innovation

One judgement is not going to change everything, but it is significant. The battle is going to be long drawn and keenly fought.

<div class="paragraphs"><p>(Photo: Brett Jordan/Unsplash)</p></div>
(Photo: Brett Jordan/Unsplash)

It is good to have competition and in India competition has done a lot of good for the country and her people. But this comes with a caveat that there should be healthy competition and eventually it should mean ‘may the best brand win!’ Truly, this should be ideal for any competitive and legal framework under which any market operates. But that has not been the case for some time in India, at least not in the field of technology and applications. The dominant players, especially the big tech foreign firms, were getting all the advantages and local players were being bogged down by compliance and archaic rules and policies, some continuing from the colonial era. 

But we have been aiming at being self-reliant (Aatmanirbhar) since long. The existing framework has been at odds with the Government of India’s stated objective, and so things needed to change. And change they did in early 2021 the Government of India announced the geospatial guidelines, unshackling the industry from repressive colonial-era regulations, making it poised to achieve the targeted revenue of Rs 1 lakh crore by the year 2030. Guidelines did a lot to encourage the indigenous players to operate freely, and not under the shadow of ambiguity wherein they could be hauled up by the authorities for just doing their job. The impact is there for everyone to see, there is rush of players in the Indian geospatial arena. 

I see the CCI's recent findings and judgement imposing heavy penalties and restricting foreign players from practices that inhibit competition as logical next step towards building a strong and indigenous technology ecosystem. We welcome it and hail this as a strong step towards holding the big-tech companies accountable. We must realise the downside of a skewed playing field that puts the local companies and innovators at a disadvantage. This is just like colonisation but in a technological sense. We would always be dependent on a foreign company to our technological needs. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi is a very strong proponent of an 'Aatmanirbhar' and 'Sarvottam Bharat'. Realising his vision of an India that is powering the world’s innovation and building technology that is made in India, for the world, this judgment appropriately compliments this. It unshackles India’s progress and value creation ability, both economically and geopolitically.

One judgement is not going to change everything, but it is a significant one. The battle is going to be long drawn and keenly fought. And another one more thing: ‘The God is in Details’. And detailed one it is, addresses some of our key grievances especially the mandatory pre-installation of entire Google Mobile Suite under MADA (with no option to uninstall) and their prominent placement amounts to imposition of unfair condition on the device manufacturers. Another important observation among others that actually look into the harmful impact of anti-competitive practices in inhibiting innovation and in turn hurting the end consumer is—"by making pre-installation of Google’s proprietary apps (particularly Google Play Store) conditional upon signing of AFA/ACC for all android devices manufactured/ distributed/marketed by device manufacturers, has reduced the ability and incentive of device manufacturers to develop and sell devices operating on alternative versions of Android i.e., Android forks and thereby limited technical or scientific development to the prejudice of the consumers". And there are more such observations in a judgement that is quite unambiguous, in-depth and duly considered. 

The CCI judgment needs to be implemented strongly and quickly, in letter and spirit, without loopholes, to prevent more damage to India as a country, Indians as consumers, and the Indian ecosystem. And a lot more needs to be done to rebalance the playing field ensuring  a level playing field amongst Indian and foreign tech companies. 

The Indian digital app and platform ecosystem existed far before foreign big-tech, and is much better in terms of its offerings for Indians—CCI findings show how Indian indigenous apps have been suppressed, and that’s the main reason most Indians haven’t been able to access and use the better, more local Indian apps, leading to Indians not being able to appreciate and benefit from the value of Indian app.

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In the mapping search sector, which is one of the most, if not the most, core and widespread search service, MapmyIndia has been creating digital maps since 1995, and http://MapmyIndia.com internet mapping and local search and navigation service has been there since 2004—far before foreign big-tech even launched globally, let alone India. The indigenous map search and navigation app from MapmyIndia is called Mappls (http://www.mappls.com, http://www.mappls.com/getApp), and offers a whole host of features which are far better than the foreign big-tech mapping app—with features that enable road safety and prevention of accidents, doorstep level navigation efficiency, community-driven hyper local map-based reporting which help fix issues on ground, and just much richer, cooler 3D and 360 degree Metaverse Maps—offering a far richer and better mapping experience—that most consumers don’t know about! Those who have downloaded and used Mappls app realise how much better it is, and those who use MapmyIndia Mappls APIs and technology solutions realise how much more powerful it is.

We hope the CCI judgement is the start of a change that helps the Indian ecosystem prosper far more.

Rohan Verma is chief executive officer and executive director at MapmyIndia

The views expressed here are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of BQ Prime or its editorial team.