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The Alliance of Digital <keyword id="3658" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="india" source="Orion">India</keyword> Foundation (ADIF) on Wednesday hailed the action taken by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) against Google for unfair use of its dominant position with respect to Play Store policies, especially in regard to In-app payment systems. As Google's unfair practices in regards to In-<keyword id="235499" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="app" source="Orion">app</keyword> purchases and subscription fees are established through the CCI verdict, the lasting way out is to have a legislative frame to restrain such practices of excessive charging by the App Aggregators platforms, it said. An ADIF spokesperson said that this payments decision, along with the <keyword id="6355645" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="android" source="Orion">Android</keyword> app bundling decision by the CCI last week, will set a new precedent globally against the anti-trust practices followed by any dominant tech organisation in India. ADIF, an over 500-member alliance working relentlessly for easing the operating ecosystem for startups, said that there is a strong need to back the CCI decision with appropriate legislation, so as to stop App Aggregator platforms from charging excessively from App developers. "A price regulatory authority and framework in Digital India Act or Competition Act, in line with DMA act in the UK for digital markets may be the imminent step in the right direction, which would help in restraining such anti-competitive practices by Significant IT intermediary organisations," said the organisation. Charging to the tune of 30 per cent for payment services is excessive by any means and the CCI noted that mandatory imposition of <keyword id="15347289" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="gpbs" source="Orion">GPBS</keyword> (Google Play Billing System) limits technical advancement in the market for in-app payment processing services because it disturbs the incentives for innovation and the capacity of payment processors and app developers to innovate and build new technologies. "Also, other than payment processing services, Google play store does not provide any additional service which justifies the imposition of its supra-competitive fees, hence their commission of 15 per cent or 30 per cent is without any commercial justification," it added. There is a strong need to stop this abusive practice, and as has been established by CCI of this unfair practice, there needs a legislative framework to restrict the In-app payment charges in line with PG charges (up to 3 per cent). "The time is ripe to replicate the same for the app developers also, as this would usher a new paradigm in the Start-up space in India, with consumers getting innovative app-based solutions for their professional and business needs," said the ADIF. The CCI fined Google Rs 936.44 crore on October 25 for abusing its dominant position with regard to its Play Store Billing and payment policy, a few days after the regulator slapped a fine of Rs 1,338 crore for abusing its dominant position in multiple markets with its Android mobile operating system (OS), may be considered as the resilient footing to set up the legislative framework. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/mobile/news/this-xiaomi-12s-ultra-concept-is-a-hope-to-take-smartphone-photography-to-the-next-level-lets-you-attach-dslr-lenses-to-the-phone/articleshow/95252403.cms">This Xiaomi 12S Ultra Concept is a hope to take smartphone photography to the next level — lets you attach DSLR lenses to the phone</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/crypto-exchange-binances-ceo-invests-500-mn-in-twitter-to-support-free-speech/articleshow/95256055.cms">Crypto exchange Binance's CEO invests $500 mn in Twitter to "support" free speech</a>

CCI action against Google to bring in fair play in Indian app ecosystem: ADIF

<ul><li>The <keyword id="11924074" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="shark-tank-india" source="Orion">Shark Tank India</keyword> judge says gatekeepers of the app ecosystem – Apple and <keyword id="19902762" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="google" source="keywords">Google</keyword> – are the new East India Company and they operate with complete arrogance and impunity.</li><li>Just as startup founders are coming under pressure, venture capitalists and auditors too need to be held accountable for their behaviour.</li><li><keyword id="20225195" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="shark-tank" source="keywords">Shark Tank</keyword> India has become a catalyst for driving entrepreneurship and giving it legitimacy. </li></ul> <keyword id="127971" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="anupam-mittal" source="Orion">Anupam Mittal</keyword> is India’s original internet entrepreneur, who is the founder and CEO of People Group. Way before platform economy became a buzzword, Mittal built a platform for Indians seeking life partners. And even today one million Indians find their partners on shaadi.com every year. Call him the OG of startups or a serial entrepreneur, he is a man who does not mince words. In a free wheeling chat with Business Insider’s Malini Bhupta, Mittal talks about unfair trade practices of Google, his investment in Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal and what he thinks is the biggest achievement of Shark Tank India. Edited Excerpts: With some high profile startups like Paytm and Byju’s coming under lens, what do you think is wrong with the startup ecosystem? I think the Paytm issue is a little different. There are two issues there in my view – one is valuation. The company came out with its IPO at the height of the unicorn boom and as a result, their valuation was corrected when the pvt. market corrected. This is part of the pricing game and one can hardly blame them for it. Eventually, they would have grown into their valuation is what I believe. However, the second issue which is regulatory in nature is far more serious. Whether it is justified or not I don’t know. I think there is a little heavy-handedness here as what you are talking about is a payments bank KYC stuff being the reason to shut them down, which could be seen as over-reach since they are not a significantly important lending institution. Talking about what is wrong with India’s ecosystem and why founders are behaving badly is a common issue that occurs when there are high levels of greed. When there is massive liquidity in the system people think they can take advantage of the situation. In the US you have seen Theranos, crypto frauds and an industry that was created around SPACs. Billions of dollars have been lost on that. What is happening in India is a small reflection of that. Greed manifests in two ways – one is the founders who are ambitious who see the ecosystem celebrating unicorns and that gets weaponised. Over time a few start with minor refractions and very soon they start fabricating revenues and manipulating auditors to keep up with the image that has been created. They are riding tigers they can't get off. The venture capitalists too want to see their investments being marked up as their future fund raises depend on the portfolio's net asset value and so they play along and at times actually drive the founders at a velocity that is unsustainable. I think they need to be held accountable by their LPs. Auditors have a very important role here and are perhaps the ones who need to pay the highest price through government censures. They are market participants who have been entrusted with a certain job for which they get paid hefty fees. When they start looking the other way, the system breaks. You have been waging a pitched battle against the unfair trade practices of Big Tech companies in India. What, in your view, are the steps that need to be taken by the government to prevent such unfair practices by large global players? Fundamentally the experience of the internet is through apps – two companies control the entire app ecosystem Google and Apple. Both operate with complete impunity. Two years ago the CCI passed an order against Google around <keyword id="963171" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="google-play" source="Orion">Google Play</keyword> Billing System (GPBS). Now they have changed the name to User Choice Billing. If you look at the order CCI says there will be no discrimination at all. Being on the App Store means nothing unless you advertise on Play Store. Startups spend anywhere between 10-50% of revenue on advertising on these platforms already. Essentially, the app store is worth nothing if you don’t have content. What choice does a company have but to adhere to their unfair practices… Now they say that any transaction that happens on apps downloaded via the store will be subject to 15-30% tax/commissions. What this means is that they want 50% of the revenues of the startups. It is the new East India Company and they operate with complete arrogance and impunity. The problem is in getting these companies to comply. Their strategy is to stretch out the legal process and tire the system. Our government and regulators have the right intent but sometimes democracies are messy. As a government, we have to ensure that nobody becomes the gatekeeper to our economy which is what these companies are trying to do. There should be penal provisions for anybody who abuses the law or twists and turns it while violating the very spirit of it. Non-compliance with judicial orders is contempt of court and so there is an opportunity to send a very strong message. These bullies need one arm chopped off in the form of penalties, a rap on the knuckles will not work as they are too big to care about a couple of hundred million in penalties. What is the biggest achievement of Shark Tank, which has now become a huge hit in India? In life timing is everything. Shark Tank’s first season was in December 2021, which was the peak of the startup hype cycle, and it demystified the whole conversation around startups and funding. Shark Tank has become a catalyst for driving entrepreneurship and giving it legitimacy. India is a land of entrepreneurs with every second person running some small business, many from home. A decade ago, if you told someone you are an entrepreneur, you would be told to come back when you get serious. The show has played an amazing role in celebrating entrepreneurship and the startup ecosystem. A lot of companies have done very well. About 8-10 companies that got funded in Shark Tank are doing very well out of 180 companies that came to the show. This is an early stage game and will play out the same way. When you invest in 100 early stage companies, 4-5 will do very well and help recover the investments and some will become very big. A majority will fail. What I found amazing was that the companies that came to the show were not the elites who came from IIT or IIM. These are small businesses founded by housewives and family members. Entrepreneurship is not the reserve of the few. The next decade will be defined by Indian entrepreneurs globally and so there is no better time to be an entrepreneur than now. Shark Tank has put belief in every Indian that they can do it and that changes the game. Many of the founders that come to Shark Tank can do even better than the founders who have come from an IIT or an IIM. I believe that these people understand commerce and ‘dhandha’. The elitist founders are used to being served everything on a platter. Many professionals who come out of large companies or consulting firms cannot start without large funding. Out of the 100 unicorns we have, many will spectacularly fail in 2024 as they were built on the wrong foundations. These companies were built on a template of Ivy League founders and old school networks and so they got funded. Of the businesses that come to Shark Tank, what sectors can do well and stand a better chance of being funded? Indians now have the same aspirations as people in other parts of the world. Anybody who comes in and can bridge the gap between aspiration and affordability will do well especially in lifestyle. For example - Companies in the clothing and jewellery space will do well if they can deliver high aspiration at a value pricing. Last year a company called Snitch came with a revenue of Rs 60 crore and is now doing Rs 250 crore in sales. A company called Skippy, which makes ice pops was funded on Shark Tank too and has a run rate of Rs 50 crore from a few lakhs before ST. I funded a company called Sharmaji Ka Atta which has a revenue run rate of Rs 20 lakh a month in less than 12 months from less than 1 lakh. Another one called Whatsapp Wellness just got funded by HUL. Fundamentally, companies that can build premium products but don’t break the bank on affordability in categories like fashion, lifestyle and food will do well. People read labels now and the young generation is focused on what they are eating. Beauty and wellness products will do well as a secular trend for most of our history Lakme meant beauty, that’s how unbranded we were. Do you feel Shaadi.com is still relevant after Tinder and other dating apps came about? Let’s understand why Tinder is used, it is for hookups and is struggling to grow its revenue in India. Shaadi.com is not an arranged marriage platform. Shaadi.com is a planned marriage platform. Indian culture has four stages of life and marriage is one of the life stages. When you are planning to marry you look for compatibility and it is not about a chemical reaction. On Shaadi.com the family and parents collaborate to find a partner. The old community networks are now dying and we replace those networks. We are bringing together people in the same life stage to find a like-minded partner. The hook-up sites don’t do that and don't understand the Indian ethos. They are applying the same global model to India which does not work beyond a certain point. You were the original internet entrepreneur with a disruptive product. Why did you not create a large business that went on to become a decacorn or a unicorn? It depends on how you define success. If the definition is labels such as decacorn and unicorn, then that's not the game we are playing. Those are vanity labels that I would rather not pursue. Our definition of success is value creation and we are long-term compounders, much like Berkshire &amp; LVMH, so in a sense our ‘overnight’ success story is still waiting to become obvious to the world. From that lens, our ROCE is perhaps the best in the industry we have only ever raised about $20 mn but created several billion in value between our operated and invested cos. Our investee companies employ thousands, have raised over $20 bn and will go on to create $100 bn in value over time, in the bargain generating tremendous wealth for the country and hopefully for us too. We boast an IRR of 52% consistently for more than a decade which is extraordinary by any standards and a testament to our approach and story. Many people build businesses but we were fortunate to create entire industries such as online matchmaking via Shaadi.com, which we still run; proptech company Makaan.com which we sold to NewsCorp very handsomely; India’s first &amp; still the largest digital ad agency, Interactive Avenues, which we sold to IPG at a benchmark price that is yet to be crossed; India’s first mobile gaming company, Mauj Mobile which spawned a massive industry. So, whether it is our customers, employees, shareholders, the country or society at large, I think we have already impacted 10s of millions and while we don’t have a market listed entity like Jio or TCS to show for it, we have delivered massive national and global level impact. Keep in mind that we are most often the first to check into investee cost and every company we have founded has been the first in its industry. Our innovations have generated billions of dollars in wealth and given rise to innumerable founders and entrepreneurs who have learnt at our companies and gone on to build massive companies of their own. Further, I am still very young and the Indian opportunity is only now unfolding. In the next couple of years, you will see some of our other bets in space exploration, mobility real edtech, &amp; sustainable fintech come into the limelight besides something very special we are building on our own. So, in short, I still remain the OG and if you force me to use your labels we have birthed not one or two but several Unicorns &amp; Decacorns and that too with very limited capital. It is perhaps one of the most spectacular untold stories of value creation in the digital economy. Ola is one company that is headed for an IPO and you own 2% in the company. How did that happen? When we invested in Ola, there was not much of a concept of venture funding and the company did not have any suitors so we were able to get in at a very attractive valuation and hold an extremely healthy minority stake which obviously has been diluted over time. I think the network effects are so large that it is hard for others to get into it. I am still a shareholder and looking forward to the initial public offering. I invested in 2012 and when I met Bhavish first, I did not understand the problem he was solving as I live in Mumbai where cabs are available. So I did not think there was a problem. A few days later when I was in Delhi and needed a cab, I was told that they would call a taxi stand. After I came back from Delhi, I realised there was a problem everywhere. And I used to call the call centre and Bhavish used to answer the call centre, which showed me his commitment and reminded me of myself when I had started and so I invested.

Anupam Mittal hits out at Google — 'Tech bullies need one arm chopped off in the form of penalties'

The 1999 sci-fi thriller ‘The Matrix’ might just be a reality very soon. 
 <keyword id="3289843" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Kevin-Ho">Kevin Ho</keyword>, President of <keyword id="6357456" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Huawei">Huawei</keyword>’s handest line, said that the future is closer than we think at <keyword id="3357803" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="CES-Asia-2016">CES Asia 2016</keyword> in Shanghai, China. 

	“What would people from ancient society think knowing that we can fly”, Ho asked the crowd.
 

	Calling it ‘the scary index’, Ho explained just how scary modern life would be to someone from a different era.
 

	The rate of change has accelerated in recent years, Ho explained, meaning that what might be possible in just a few short decades may blow up your mind right now.
 

	“In the future, there will be another you living in the parallel digital world.”
 

	A digital world exists in parallel to the real world today, he explained. In the present, the two work mostly hand in hand. Dramatic increases in processing power and storage and connectivity will diverge the two.
 

	This is what technology would do to us. Purchase the right upgrades and you can enable or transform your virtual self with all sorts of features. Ho called it “spiritual immortality”, and we could get there by 2025, or maybe 2040.
 

	For this stellar connectivity and dramatically increased access speed will be necessary. Ho estimated a 3,000 Gpbs peak connection speed in 40, up from 1Gbps right now, and 15,000 zetabytes of data storage worldwide, up from 10 today. Artificial intelligence will continue to take steps forward. Ho also emphasised the need for increased vigilance on the security front.
 

	All of these areas are fields into which the company is pouring its R&amp;D efforts and dollars. There are 4.5 billion connections to the internet right now; there will be 100 billion by 2025, and 100 trillion by 40. Likewise, there are about two IoT devices per person today. There will be 256 by 2025, he claimed, and as many as 1,000 per person in 2040.
 

	Ho’s vision is about which technology can better life for human beings. What would life be like with such advancement?
 

	Huawei has invested $37 billion in R&amp;D over the last 10 years to find some answers, he said. Everyone wants a part of the smarthome, Ho acknowledged. But progress has been slow.
 

	The company is working with many technology partners to build open platforms for the future. Huawei also is investigating health, the smart home, sports and medicine and more.
 One surprise: an investment in the <keyword id="727238" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Smart-Car">smart car</keyword> space, and the artificial intelligence that will make it possible. The company is working with several very well known companies, he said, Volkswagen is one of them. 

	There’s VR and AR as well. Huawei recently launched an open platform that they are talking to several partners about. Virtual Reality is “a portal or window leading us to the future”, Ho described. 
	 
	You can watch the full video <a href="http://www.cesasia.cn/news/videos/">here</a>.

	 
	 
	(Image credits: indiatimes)

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CCI action against Google to bring in fair play in Indian app ecosystem: ADIF

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Anupam Mittal hits out at Google — 'Tech bullies need one arm chopped off in the form of penalties'

Malini Bhupta

Huawei’s Kevin Ho believes ‘The Matrix’ could soon be a reality

Usha Rani Das

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