Highlighting concerns over the antitrust implications of artificial intelligence, Competition Commission of India (CCI) Chair Ravneet Kaur on Friday noted that there are concerns over dark patterns and deep fakes.
“There is also the case of dark trends and how they can influence the conduct of digital businesses and how people can be conditioned to make certain choices. So that could have implications for competition. We could have algorithmic collusion as another form of collusion, which can be anti-competitive,” Kaur said at an event organised by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The CCI recently launched a tender to engage an agency to conduct a market study on AI and competition. Kaur said the CCI would soon finalize the third-party implementation partner who will take the study forward.
Dark patterns refer to any deceptive practices or design patterns using user interface or user experience interactions on any platform, designed to mislead or trick users into doing something they were not supposed to. didn’t intend or didn’t want to do it originally.
To protect consumers from such practices, the Central Consumer Protection Authority, under the Department of Consumer Affairs, issued guidelines for the prevention and regulation of dark patterns last November.
At the same time, addressing the conference, Kaur also said that the CCI would soon notify the provisions relating to changes in competition rules. These would include changes to the CCI’s green channel or automatic approval route for mergers and acquisitions (M&A), de minimis exemption, and some regulations. “They are at a very advanced stage with a very detailed consultation process last year,” Kaur said. These follow the enactment of the Competition Amendment Act 2023 in April last year.
After receiving notification of the provisions to reduce the time limit for approval of mergers and acquisitions by the CCI, Kaur also sought to strengthen cooperation from industrial chambers and other stakeholders to meet the deadline. The deadline has now been reduced from 210 to 150 days. “I think that in the Competition Commission we need to collaborate with the industry chambers and other stakeholders, because the shorter time frame also means that we need greater cooperation. We need the records to be more complete and things to be able to move faster,” Kaur said.
Kaur also said that going forward, the CCI would focus on two broad areas: advocacy and internal capacity building.