The Alliance of Digital India Foundation (ADIF) has brought to the notice of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) against Google participating in anti-competitive practices in the internet advertising industry.

The complaint speaks of Google's dominance in the online search and display advertising domains, with a fine slammed on the tech giant for its anti-competitive practices that have affected Indian companies.

The ADIF claims that these unfair business practices have not only impeded competition but have amplified Google's complete dominance over significant internet platforms and its strong reliance on advertising revenue, which accounts for 97 percent of its overall revenue.

It believes that these practices have led to the creation of an unfair playing field when sponsors are subjected to restrictions like call asset limits and bans on third-party technical support.

The ADIF also called out on Google's ad ranking algorithm, terming it opaque and devoid of clarity for advertisers regarding the value of their money.

It is concerned with Google's trademark keyword bidding policies, which permit rivals to place bids on phrases that are protected by trademarks.

As it predicts that this technique inflates ad rates artificially, which ultimately benefits Google at the expense of trademark owners and advertisers.

Moreover, Google has also received complaints on its inconsistent application of its ad policy and its opaque ad review and redressal procedures, which have often led to the unjust expulsion of advertisers from Google's platform.

Google was accused by ADIF of participating in self-preferencing that undermines competition in the display advertising industry by linking products like DoubleClick for Publishers with AdX and Display & Video 360 with AdX.

This was done by exploiting Google's dominance in the market.

The news comes amid a continuing dispute over Google's invoicing practices between Indian developers and the search engine giant. About 200 apps from ten developers were removed from Google's Play Store in March due to alleged violations of the company's user choice billing (UCB) policy.

After the parties involved agreed to a four-month delay in the payment of outstanding payments relating to services provided by the Play Store, the apps were later reinstalled with in-app billing.

A number of Indian entrepreneurs also appealed Google's pricing strategy to the Madras High Court last year; following that, app developers took the matter all the way to the highest court.