“There’s a case of dark patterns and how they can influence the conduct of digital companies,” says CCI Chairperson

Highlighting concerns around antitrust implications from Artificial Intelligence, Competition Commission of India (CCI) Chairperson Ravneet Kaur, on Friday, noted that there are concerns around dark patterns and deep fakes.

“There’s also a case of dark patterns and how they can influence the conduct of digital companies and how people can be conditioned to make certain choices. So, that could have some competition implications. 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 has recently issued a tender to hire an agency to conduct a market study on AI and competition. Kaur said the CCI will be shortly finalising the third party implementation partner to take the study forward.

Dark patterns mean any practices or deceptive design patterns using user interface or user experience interactions on any platform that are designed to mislead or trick users to do something they originally did not intend or want to do.

To protect consumers from such practices, the Central Consumer Protection Authority under the Department of Consumer Affairs had, in November last year, notified guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns.

Meanwhile, addressing the conference, Kaur also said that the CCI would soon notify the provisions to the changes in the competition rules. These would include changes in the green channel or automatic route for CCI approval for mergers and acquisitions (M&As), 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.

Following the notification of provisions for reduced timeline for approval of M&As by the CCI, Kaur also sought greater cooperation from industry chambers and other stakeholders to meet the deadline. The time limit has now been reduced to 150 days from 210 days. “I feel that in the Competition Commission, we need to engage with industry chambers and with the other stakeholders, because the shorter timeline also means that we need greater cooperation. We need the filings to be more comprehensive and for things to be able to move faster,” Kaur said.

Kaur also said that moving ahead the CCI will focus on two broad areas—advocacy and internal capacity building.