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House panel suggests law to curb Big Tech’s control
A parliamentary committee has recommended the government bring a Digital Competition Act to ensure a fair, transparent and contestable digital ecosystem, taking note of the “anti-competitive” practices by Big Tech companies
New Delhi: A parliamentary committee has recommended the government bring a Digital Competition Act to ensure a fair, transparent and contestable digital ecosystem, taking note of the “anti-competitive” practices by Big Tech companies.
The committee suggested India’s competition law be enhanced to meet the requirements of restraining the anti-competitive behaviour in the digital markets in order to strengthen the Competition Commission of India with new responsibilities.
In its report, the committee on Finance, led by former Union minister Jayant Sinha, asked the government to identify “the small number of leading players or market winners that can negatively influence competitive conduct in the digital ecosystem, as systematically important digital intermediaries (SIDI) based on their revenue, market capitalization and number of active business and end users” and adopt code for conduct-based approach, or ex-ante regulations.
In its report, the finance committee said, Systemically Important Digital Intermediary or SIDIs “should not limit business users from differentiating commercial conditions on its platform, including price, increased commissions, delisting, and other equivalent terms and conditions.”
The panel said “deep discounting by platforms with market power is a matter of concern” as discounts are discriminatory and push prices to below cost levels in certain product categories, thus affecting offline and online retailer’s ability to compete.
The panel maintained that in the digital market, “winners emerge within 3-5 years after the market starts to develop and by the time policies can be formulated or anti-competitive behaviours be adjudicated, markets top in one direction and a winner emerges. The committee recommend that competitive behaviour needs to be evaluated ex-ante before markets end up monopolised.”
It also wants policy tweaks to compel SIDIs to “submit a report to the commission describing in a detailed and transparent manner the measures it has implemented to comply with its mandatory obligations.
A SIDI operator should also publish on its website a non-confidential summary of the report,” it suggested.
While the new data protection bill is awaiting its introduction in Parliament, the finance panel demand bar on SIDI to process, for the purpose of providing online advertising services, personal data of end users using services of third parties that make use of core services of the platform.
It also wants SIDIs to be stopped from combining “personal data from the relevant core service of the platform with personal data from any further core services or from any other services provided by the platform or with personal data from third party services.”
