digbijaymishratimesgroupcombengaluru google is facing another antitrust challenge a fresh complaint has been filed with the competition commission of india cci accusing the usbased tech major of abusing its android operating systems influence in the smart television market which has been growing at a fast pace a person aware of the matter confirmed that the competition watchdog has admitted the complaint which was filed by two antitrust lawyers and google has been asked to respond the complaint is about googles antitrust practices where for example if you are a tv maker and you want to use googles operating system on your tv before giving the licence to you they sign an agreement with you which essentially restricts you from getting into an agreement with any forked or modified android developer irrespective of the device being manufactured a person aware of the matter saidkshitiz arya and purushottam anand have filed the complaint against google both of them declined to comment on the matter while google india and cci did not respond to an emailed query from toi the development came on wednesday when a us congress report on big tech said googles play store functions as a gatekeeper which the search engine giant is using to hike fees and favour its applications the report also stated that google tracks the realtime performance of third parties including its competitors the us subcommittee report investigating competition in digital markets said google has used android to entrench and extend its dominance in a host of ways that undermine competitiongoogle is already facing heat from a group of local entrepreneurs who have been protesting against its move to implement 30 fees on digital transactions in india which after the backlash has been pushed by six months to april 2022 in the us apple is also facing a similar pushback from platforms like epic games and spotify but in india the focus remains on google play store as apple has a very small market sharethe report noted that according to documents obtained by the subcommittee from 2011 to 2015 revenue from the play store accounted for 85 of googles total revenue from the android operating system hardware sales and the play storethis includes using contractual restrictions and exclusivity provisions to extend googles search monopoly from desktop to mobile and to favour its own applications and devising android lockbox a covert effort to track realtime data on the usage and engagement of thirdparty apps some of which were googles competitors it said it added overall androids business practices reveal how google has maintained its search dominance through relying on various contractual restrictions that blocked competition and through exploiting information asymmetries rather than by competing on the merits