Talking about India's Digital Competition Bill

What I said:

Competition is the lifeblood of healthy markets and economies. In the short run, things may appear rosy despite the anti-competitive behaviour of dominant players. However, in the long run, the damage begins to show—both in terms of the price consumers pay, the harm they suffer (including the exploitation of data when services are supposedly free) and the damage to innovation.

 The Indian digital services market is among the largest in subscriber numbers and, therefore, acts as a vast and valuable data source, the fuel that runs digital businesses, especially in the age of AI. We are also a large population with many first-time users who are neither digitally skilled nor savvy, making them highly vulnerable to exploitation. Unlike many other economies, we are a software powerhouse. Our domestic industry needs a level playing field.

The current spate of actions by China and the US against their domestic digital giants demonstrates that while to begin with turning a blind eye to the anti-competitive behaviour of domestic firms seems an excellent way for them to scale up and expand to global markets, eventually, domestic consumers suffer.

We need regulation to ensure that our consumers are as safe and privileged as those in other parts of the world and to give our industry a chance to be genuinely competitive in a scenario where most jurisdictions will no longer tolerate exploitative and anti-competitive conduct.

To read more, visit my blog about this event.

Organized By: CSEP