Google fined $162m by India antitrust watchdog for abuse of Android platform

India's competition regulator on Thursday ordered Alphabet Inc's Google to change its approach to its Android platform and fined the US tech company 13.38 billion Indian rupees ($161.95 million) for anticompetitive practices, Reuters reports.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) said Google leveraged its dominant position in markets such as online search and app store for Android, to protect the position of its apps like Chrome and YouTube in mobile Web browsers and online video hosting.

CCI also restricted Google from certain revenue sharing agreements with smartphone makers, noting that such practices helped Google to secure exclusivity for its search services "to the total exclusion of competitors."

Google declined to comment on the order.

"Markets should be allowed to compete on merits and the onus is on the dominant players (in the present case, Google) that its conduct does not impinge this competition on merits," CCI said in a statement.