A couple of days back, we had the news that Google has been fined $3.5 billion (Rs 31000 crores) under EU competition act because of their advertising policy. Earlier there have been multiple EU fines under GDPR which Google has faced.
Following table indicates a total of fine of around 350 million euros under GDPR equivalent to around Rs 3600 crores.
Summary Table: GDPR Fines on Google
| Year | Amount | Authority & Country | Violation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | €50M | CNIL, France | Lack of transparency, invalid ad-consent mechanisms |
| 2021 | €90M (LLC) | CNIL, France | Cookie consent withdrawal made harder than acceptance |
| 2021 | €60M (Ireland) | CNIL, France | Same as above, via Ireland-based operations |
| 2022 | €150M | CNIL, France | Cookie refusal not as easy as acceptance |
Meta has so far faced a fine of around Rs 20400 crores crores so far in the GDPR domain including the largest fine of 1.2 billion euros by Ireland Authority. Amazon has also faced fines of upto Rs 8200 crores so far under GDPR.
We are not clear about how much of actual fine has been paid by these entities after litigation. One indication is provided below.
Summary Table: Paid vs. Pending
| Company | Prominent Fines Imposed | Paid (Confirmed) | Pending / Appealed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multiple significant GDPR fines | None confirmed | Likely all under appeal or dispute | |
| Amazon | €746 M (Luxembourg) | Not verified, but obligation upheld | Appeal lost in March 2025 |
| Meta | ~€2.3 B total | ~€687 M paid in 2022; ~51% of total so far | €1.2 B and others still under appeal |
Irrespective of the actual fines paid, it is clear that GDPR has provided enormous revenue potential to EU countries.
Indian DPDPA fines could be lot less than GDPR fines but if the DPB interprets the Rs 250 crore fine as “per instance of breach” or “Per type of breach”, the actual penalty could be far higher than Rs 250 crores per breach.
Mr Donald Trump has been gloating over the revenue he is likely to generate from the 50% tariff on India. He does not understand that if he is able to collect “Trillions” of dollars in tariff and make America rich, he has to collect it only from US citizens. If the US citizens donot buy Indian products, then he is unlikely to collect the tariff income. The reality could be that some products may still be bought by US consumers at current price+50% while some may be discarded.
While Indian suppliers may lose some of their export sales, they may be able to substitute the lost sales through more sales in India or with more export incentives. India can neutralize the effect of the US tariff if it wants, by introducing export incentives which the Government is considering.
At the same time, Government may also realize that Trump is threatening that he may block outsourcing of IT business to India.
We are not sure if Trump is serious about the banning of outsourcing to India and even if he imposes, whether the Companies accept it. He can, if he wants, impose export duty on the US Companies to discourage outsourcing.
India should however factor in that US may commit its own harakiri by banning outsourcing to India.
In the meantime, India should consider imposing tariff on Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft on their revenue in India.
Now that our relationship with China is improving, we should find out means of living without Microsoft, Google, Meta or Amazon.
We already have ONDC platform which can replace Amazon. We can live without Meta since it has no big value. We can replace WhatsApp with local apps. Google mail can be replaced. The AWS, Azure and Google Cloud services, are sensitive and if stopped suddenly, could destabilize the Indian economy. We need to work out a strategy to shift the cloud storage to indigenous platforms before it is too late.
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- If Trump goes ahead with blocking outsourcing or bringing pressure on the Tech Companies to stop their services or force a tariff collection, we need to be ready to shift to alternatives including the Russian or Chinese services. Just as Trump has pushed India closer to China with his tariffs in some sectors, he will be pushing us closer to China even in the IT field. If so, China would benefit but US would collapse.
If we are pushed to this level, it will be an all out Economic War and the consequences will be completely uncontrollable.
Assuming that we may not enter such drastic phase, we still need to prepare ourselves to collect some part of our lost revenue because of tariffs through DPDPA Fines or Competition act fines on these tech companies.
EU can provide us leads since all cases in which GDPR fines have been imposed also indicate the reasons under which India can also impose fines. DPB need not work too hard to find out the non compliance. They can just re-work on GDPR instances and apply it in the Indian scenario.
For this to happen, India needs to notify the DPDPA as early as possible.
I hope MeitY will take on this responsibility to support the Government in additional revenue generation by implementing the law quickly and starting to impose fines.
Naavi
