Blaming powerful global tech companies for impeding the growth of Indian startups, Ansuman Pattnaik, director general at the Competition Commission of India (CCI), said that firms like Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft—and now NVIDIA—routinely restrict market access and tilt digital ecosystems in their favour.

“Startups face problems from the big digital firms. They are popularly called GAFA—Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon…and Microsoft. Now NVIDIA, too,” said Pattnaik at the Startup Mahakumbh in New Delhi.

“Because these firms are pretty powerful. They have rich resources of data. Against them, startups sometimes find difficulty in growing. That is a major challenge. The major challenges are like self-referencing—they will promote their products rather than startup products,” he said.

“They will do anti-steering. They will not allow startups to talk to them directly. They can also restrict market access. There are also issues of platform neutrality. They don’t act in a neutral way that allows startups to grow or compete here. That’s why in those cases, startups should come forward and file a complaint before the commission,” he added.

Pattnaik said the CCI plays a corrective role in such scenarios. Startups that believe they’ve been unfairly treated can file complaints or submit information, and the Commission will take up the matter.

He cited the Google and WhatsApp cases as key precedents.

Recently, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) upheld the CCI’s finding that Google had abused its dominant position in the digital payments and app store markets. While the tribunal reduced the penalty from ₹936.44 crore to ₹216.69 crore, it directed Google to open its app ecosystem to alternative payment systems and refrain from discriminatory practices against other UPI-based options.

The CCI also investigated WhatsApp’s 2021 privacy policy, which mandated user data sharing with its parent company Meta. In January 2025, the tribunal stayed a CCI order that would have barred WhatsApp from sharing user data with Meta for five years, citing the pending final notification of the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Rules expected by mid-2025.

Despite this temporary relief for Meta, the CCI had earlier fined the company ₹213 crore, ruling that WhatsApp’s policy abused its dominant position by mandating data sharing without user consent.

“Some important decisions have been filed against those orders, and they’re going to help startups,” Pattnaik said. “But the issue is quite complicated, and the penalties can be huge—up to 10% of global turnover. That’s why these big firms contest all the cases. So, if startups feel they’re being neglected or that proper business practices aren’t being followed by a big firm, they can still file a complaint before the commission, and we will take up the case.”