Indian govt snipes at Amazon, says not fair if private labels appear first in search results

Amazon

A senior official said on February 20 that the Indian government has given a ‘piece of its mind’ to Amazon and told the company that it wasn’t fair if its private labels, or the brands that the e-commerce major has invested in, appear first in its search results.

“I am just coming from a meeting where we told Amazon that your algorithms and the way you throw results at people have to be fair. You can’t have your own labels and companies in which you have invested appear on top of search results. That is not fair,” said Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh.

“The whole consumer protection paradigm is about fair trading practices. You might be the world’s largest company, but the balance between the seller and the consumer needs to be maintained… We gave them a piece of our mind,” he added.

Speaking at a technology conclave in Delhi, the senior official also took a dig at edtech firms like Byju’s that have been accused of over-selling their courses through huge marketing campaigns.

“I can see a representative from Byju’s here. We had called all the edtech companies. I said ‘Boss, don’t advertise so much. Don’t put pressure on students. Don’t have Shah Rukh Khan telling a mom that two tutors are better than one tutor, get two for the price of one,” he said.

“Thankfully, they agreed before we could proceed with hard steps,” he added.

Singh also reminisced about his college days when he wrote a thesis on artificial intelligence and read out a poem he generated using ChatGPT for his techie son who stays in the US. He talked about the interplay of consumer protection, data privacy and the metaverse.

“How is it that when I search Google for a shoe, the next thing on my Facebook feed is a shoe advertisement. Who is responsible for that? I know it is good for the sellers, but as a consumer it is very painful and hurts my rights that information about me, my choices is being shared without my express consent. If I gave my consent all good, if I didn’t give my consent you are not supposed to share it,” he said.

“There is no governance in the metaverse. It is all through decentralised autonomous organisations. So, it sounds very good, it is disruptive and there’s nobody in control. But, when something goes wrong, when somebody’s rights are infringed upon, when IP is infringed, when my digital avatar gets harassed in virtual space, where do I go, who do I complain to?” he added.

Singh also remarked that the government does not want to regulate, but somebody has to protect consumer rights without becoming an impediment to advancement of tech or ease of doing business.