Members of the Parliamentary Panel on Finance met representatives of big tech companies like Meta, Google, Amazon, Apple, and others. The panel questioned their use of data, the fee imposed on app developers, and other alleged anti-competitive practices. However, technology companies defended their policies and claim there is no dearth of competition.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Amar Patnaik, BJD MP and member of the Parliamentary Committee on Finance said, "The EU Digital Markets Act will be useful, but the context will have to be analysed. The context in the European Union is that the big tech can actually get into retail and therefore their mode of e-commerce is a hybrid mode whereas, in our system, it is not hybrid. They can only use their services as a platform and get buyers and sellers over there. So to do it cut and paste kind of a thing from the EU digital markets act would probably not be proper, our contexts will be different.”

He added, "We have to tailor the digital markets act to our needs. A principle-based system could actually be built into a new competition law or an amendment to the existing competition law and these principles would actually be the underlying factors to give a level playing field."

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Patnaik believes that it's the right time to review competition laws, "The competition law that we have were designed at a time when the big techs network effect and the network effects power to gain market dominance was not factored into the law at the time. So, therefore, it is definitely the right time to view those laws."

He added, "We also have to leverage the fact of digital economy pumping up the economy, we shouldn't be stifling it by over-regulation. So the regulatory challenges are immense, but not to say that there is no requirement of the regulation."

For full interview, watch accompanying video