EU-like Anti-Competition Rules Can Limit Innovation, Meta Tells Parliamentary Panel

Addressing a parliamentary panel, Meta said that European Union (EU)-like anti-competition norms could affect the ecosystem of innovation in India and would harm the scale-up of startups in the country.

Speaking in front of a parliamentary committee, Meta said that EU-like anti-competition laws could badly affect the ability of the startups in India in terms of innovation and scaling up. The social media giant said this as the panel questioned technology bigwigs including Microsoft, Meta, Google and Amazon.

Meta also said that EU-like anti-competition norms would limit how much it could do to bridge the digital connectivity gap in India.

Due to the sheer scale of the big tech businesses and their ability, they have come under the scanner in India for checks under the subject of anti-competition. Recently, the parliamentary panel queried them on how their algorithms handle content, competition norms and more.

Previously, companies including Paytm, Swiggy, Flipkart, MakeMyTrip, Zomato and Ola had told the panel that big tech companies were unfairly promoting their platform’s products and services. This was allegedly giving these companies an unfair advantage over the rest of the market.