The Competition Commission of India yesterday said it had launched an anti-trust probe into Google’s online advertising practices, deepening the Internet giant’s legal woes in the country.
Commission Secretary S.L. Bunker said the probe would take “at least a couple of months” to complete and was in response to a complaint from matchmaking Web site Bharatmatrimony.com.
“We are investigating Google,” he said, adding that the matrimonial Web site “has filed information which is being investigated to see if it can be verified.”
In February, the Economic Times reported that Bharatmatrimony.com had complained that Google had “abused its dominance by engaging in discriminatory and retaliatory practices relating to AdWords.”
“We have requested the Commission to investigate Google’s practices and impose remedial measures to protect competition,” a statement from the company said.
AdWords, which earned the bulk of Google’s US$36.5 billion advertising revenues worldwide last year, sells keywords to companies that appear in the site’s search engine, allowing them to promote their product online.
Sources at Bharatmatrimony.com told the Economic Times that the firm had filed the complaint over AdWords’ sale of keywords relating to Bharatmatrimony.com to its matchmaking rivals such as Shaadi.com.
A Google spokesman said the company had “not received any communication” on the matter and declined further comment.
The Indian commission has the power to impose fines on companies found guilty of violating competition law.
It fined construction giant DLF 6.3 billion rupees (US$119 million) in August last year for misusing its dominant position in the market and imposing “draconian” conditions on buyers in Delhi’s satellite city of Gurgaon.
Yesterday’s investigation comes as Google, which employs close to 2,000 people in India, is embroiled in another probe over its possible breach of domestic foreign-
exchange transactions rules.
The Directorate of Enforcement — a body that monitors foreign exchange dealings — is investigating how money was shifted from Google to its foreign entities and also its receipt of funds from abroad.
Separately, Google is named along with 18 other Internet companies in a criminal court case over obscene content available on its blogs and video-sharing Web site YouTube.
In other regulatory problems, competition authorities as far afield as the US, South Korea and Argentina are probing the California-based company’s online advertising model given its dominance of the market.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”