CCI’s order strikes a blow at the efforts to accelerate digital adoption: Google

Google in its blog said that through Android’s free open source software and suite of apps, it has helped device manufacturers make smartphones more affordable

Google shared an emotional blog on the recent CCI’s ruling against it and its impact on the India’s digital adoption and Android market as a whole. | Photo Credit: Reuters

Google India on Friday penned down an emotional blog on the recent CCI’s ruling against it and its impact on the India’s digital adoption and Android market as a whole. The U.S. headquartered company said that it has partnered deeply with India in the last several years of its exciting digital transformation.

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“At a time when only half of India’s population is connected, the directions in the CCI’s order strikes a blow at the ecosystem-wide efforts to accelerate digital adoption in the country,” wrote Google on its blog.

Last year, on October 20, Competition Commission of India (CCI) slapped a penalty of ₹1,338 crore on Google for abusing its dominant position related to Android mobile device ecosystem. Now, the matter has reached Supreme Court after National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) refused to stay the penalty imposed.

Aimed at readers, the Google’s blog says that over the last 15 years, through Android’s free open source software and suite of high quality apps, Google has helped device manufacturers make smartphones more affordable by a vast margin.

As per Google, the number of annual app downloads in India reached a new high of 29 billion in 2022, making it the second biggest app market after China (source: App Annie). “This thriving ecosystem of users, developers, telcos and OEMs has created fertile conditions for a number of innovations.”

Google says that when there are many different and unique versions of Android, called forks, it harms the consistent and predictable ecosystem. “Devices built on incompatible ‘forks’ would prevent Google from securing those devices, as these versions will not support the security and user safety features that Google provides,” adds Google.

Lack of consistent security upgrades will leave the users of those devices exposed to cybercrime, bugs, and malware.

“Since incompatible Android forks will not support the security and user safety features that Google provides, security responsibilities for these devices will instead fall to the OEMs, who will need to invest extensively in creating consistent, all-year-round security upgrades themselves. This will result in higher costs for the OEMs, and consequently, more expensive devices for Indian consumers,” believes Google.

In a forked Android environment, small developers will be forced to prioritize. Their costs will increase with each additional version they support. This will be highly damaging not only for developers, but also consumers, who will be prevented from accessing important online services.

“Foundational disruptions at this stage could set us back years and undo the deep investments and effort made by OEMs, developers and the industry overall,” mentioned Google.