India slaps Google with $166,000 fine for not cooperating in antitrust investigation

Google has been facing an antitrust investigation in India since late 2011, but apparently it didn’t comply with directions to hand in information and documents — and now the Indian government has slapped a 10 million rupee ($166,000) fine on the Internet firm.

UPDATE: A Google spokesperson tells TNW that this development is disappointing as it is has fully cooperated in the investigation.

We’re disappointed by this development. While we are confident that our products are compliant with competition law in India, we continue to cooperate fully with the Competition Commission of India’s extensive and ongoing investigation.  We’ve not yet received this procedural order, but will review it fully once we have.

As spotted by TechCrunch, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) issued a statement saying that the government has been investigating Google’s alleged abuse of market power in online search and search advertising.

Google is facing a fine of up to $5 billion for its alleged anti-competitive behavior, stemming from a complaint that advocacy group CUTS International filed in late 2011, the Times of India reports. Subsequently, a matrimonial website (Matrimony.com) also filed a complaint.

India’s move to fine Google comes just about a month after the tech giant finally made some headway in its long-running antitrust case with the European Commission. It agreed to prominently display at least three rival services whenever a search result returns a link to one of its own services, such as Google Shopping or Gmail.

Headline image via Kimihiro Hoshino/AFP/Getty Images