Internet Body Representing Google, Meta, Amazon Calls Parliamentary Panel Report On Big Tech Regressive

Industry body Asia Internet Coalition (AIC) has come out all guns blazing against the recently tabled report on anti-competitive practices by big tech companies. 

In a statement, AIC said that the report presented by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance was prescriptive, absolutist and regressive in nature. The industry body also said that the digital competition law recommended by the panel could dampen digital innovation in the country. 

AIC is an industry body that represents the interests of big tech giants such as Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, LinkedIn, SAP, and Twitter, among others. 

The coalition also said that incorporating legislation from foreign jurisdictions into India could impact innovations and investments flowing into the country. 

“… transplanting legislative reforms designed for a foreign jurisdiction with high digital penetration into India, could lead to disproportionate costs to consumers in India and an impact on innovation and investment by businesses in India…,” said the AIC in a statement. 

The industry body also called on the centre to conduct wider stakeholder consultations before formulating new laws governing the space. AIC also hinted that introducing any new digital competition legislation could lead to over compliance, adding that the introduced Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 and the Competition Amendment Bill, 2022 also proposed to govern the digital markets. 

Flagging incorporation of elements of the European Union’s Digital Markets Act and US’ American Innovation and Choice Online Act in the panel’s report, AIC called for exercising restraint citing the ‘long transition and implementation periods’ of two norms. 

“It will be some time before it can be determined whether these new and experimental regulations will be necessary, and work and deliver the benefits claimed. We urge the Government to first observe whether these overseas regulatory developments bring about benefits that outweigh costs,” added the coalition. 

The industry body’s statement comes weeks after a Parliamentary panel, in a scathing report, urged the centre to introduce a new digital competition law to reign in big tech players. 

The report also called for giving more teeth to the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and suggested setting up of specialised Digital Markets units within the watchdog to monitor tech giants. 

The criticism comes at a time when the Indian government has introduced a waft of norms to crack the whip on tech majors. Be it the data protection Bill or the new amendments proposed to the IT law, these new norms place the onus squarely on digital players for ‘safe internet’ and propose hefty fines for flouting these guidelines. 

The regulatory quagmire has led to companies and organisations lobbying with the government to revisit many of these norms to blunt the impact of the stringent regulations. 

On the other hand, the government has been looking to revamp the entire regulatory landscape and to reign in big tech players which have largely stayed outside the ambit of Indian laws so far. The new regulations also come in the backdrop of increasing showdown between the union government and social media platforms.

Meanwhile, India continues to witness digital adoption, largely on the back of smartphone and internet penetration. As more or more people come online, India’s digital economy has received a massive boost. In December, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said that the country’s digital economy grew 2.4X faster than the overall economy of the country between 2014 and 2019, from $107.7 Bn in 2014 to $222.5 Bn in 2019.