House panel seeks to rein in Big Tech firms with digital competition law

The SIDIs would have to submit a report to the CCI every year describing the measures implemented to fulfill their obligations

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance has presented a set of recommendations to rein in Big Tech companies through a digital competition law for regulating anti-competitive practices on their platforms.

The report underlined the need for ex-ante regulations — which are cautionary and based on anticipated changes or activity — and said the government must frame a definition for Systemically Important Digital Intermediaries (SIDIs) that need tighter regulations. The classification could be based on revenues, market capitalisation, and the number of active users.

Technology behemoths such as Alphabet (which owns Google), Meta (which owns Facebook), and Amazon are among those recognised the