Google is facing antitrust probe in India. I don't know about other countries but what Indian law is broken in google search? Google search is a private free product. Why is it bad to prefer its own other products like google-maps instead of bing-maps?
2 Answers
Its just free enterprise, right?
Well ... except when there is a law that says its not allowed. I am unfamiliar with Indian law but the relevant law in Australia is the Trade Practices Act which deals with this under the category of Misuse of Market Power. In a nutshell:
A business with a substantial degree of power in a market is not allowed to use this power for the purpose of eliminating or substantially damaging a competitor or to prevent a business from entering into a market.
By preferring their products over a competitor's in their search engine they are "... eliminating or substantially damaging a competitor ...".
I cannot add comments yet (darn low reputation), so I'm saying this here:
This same issue is very big in the EU. Google us under scrutiny for not providing equal advertisement/favoring their own products. According to many New York Times articles, this is the EU trying to promote their own businesses and decrease reliance on US companies; it is definitely not just righteousness. I am not sure if this is the same or even similar scenario in India.
At least in the U.S., this issue is known as net-neutrality.
