Ravi Shankar Tiwari And Automattic Inc.

Case No. 03 of 2023 Page 1 of 8 COMPETITION COMMISSION OF INDIA Case No. 01 of 2023 In Re: Ravi Shankar Tiwari Informant And Automattic Inc. Opposite Party CORAM: Ms. Ravneet Kaur Chairperson Mr. Anil Agrawal Member Ms. Sweta Kakkad Member Mr. Deepak Anurag Member Order under Section 26(2) of the Competition Act, 2002 1. The Information in this matter was filed by Mr. Ravi Shankar Tiwari under Section 19(1)(a) of the Competition Act, 2002 (Act) against Automattic Inc. (Opposite Party / OP) alleging contravention of the provisions of Section 4 of the Act. 2. The Informant is a software developer from Kolkata. It has been submitted that the Opposite Party is involved in the development of open-source software, applications, blogging websites, plugins, etc. The Informant has further averred that the Opposite Party is the parent company of Wordpress.org [a content management Case No. 03 of 2023 Page 2 of 8 system (CMS)], wherein the user can create a simple blog as well as a fully operational website and mobile applications. 3. As per the OP, for developing a website, a user is typically required to be well- versed with coding and programming. If a user who wishes to develop a website but is not skilled in coding can use a CMS platform which simplifies website development by providing pre-built templates, plugins, and a user-friendly interface for adding, editing, and organizing content. A plugin is stated to be a software add- on that is installed/plugged into a website created using any particular CMS to enhance its capabilities. 4. The allegations of the Informant against the Opposite Party relate to the plugins developed by the Informant to be used for websites developed using wordpress.org. The Informant asserts that he had two plugins from their Way2enjoy account with the OP: Way2enjoy image optimizer and Regenerate Thumbnails plugin. It has been alleged that the Informant's account was purportedly banned by WordPress.org on 22.11.2018 without any explanation, and subsequent submissions were also rejected. Additionally, new plugins developed and published by the Informant were also banned without communication. The Informant further claims that while the Way2enjoy image optimizer was functioning well and not under discussion, the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin received a poor rating from a user, resulting in a decline in the overall rating of the app. However, both plugins were banned subsequently. It is contended that the OP purportedly deleted 5-star reviews of the Informant’s Way2enjoy image optimizer. The Informant posits that the OP, who owns several plugins on WordPress.org, may have removed these reviews with the intention of diminishing the Informant’s overall rating and to promote its own plugin i.e., Jetpack. 5. The Informant has thus, alleged that WordPress is abusing its dominant position, in the following manner- Case No. 03 of 2023 Page 3 of 8 5.1. Section 4(2)(b)(ii) – By banning new categories of plugins of the Informant, WordPress is limiting the technical development relating to the services and options available to the prejudice of consumers. 5.2. Section 4(2)(c) – WordPress has banned all the plugin offered by the Informant and it kept rejecting new submissions and new categories of plugins even after 4 years of ban which constitutes an act of denial of market access. 6. The Informant sought immediate reinstatement of its plugins and compensation for lost revenues as reliefs from the Commission. The Informant has also sought similar Interim Relief under Section 33 of the Act against the Opposite Party. 7. Having considered the Information, the Commission vide its order dated 21.06.2023, decided to seek response of the Opposite Party on the Information filed by the Informant and few additional queries. The Informant was also allowed to file its rejoinder, if any, to the response filed by the Opposite Party. 8. After extension of time, the Opposite Party filed its reply on 06.09.2023 and 21.09.2023 followed by rejoinder from the Informant on 30.10.2023 and 15.11.2023. The Informant also filed some additional information through email on 09.03.2024. 9. The Commission perused and examined the information available on record including the Information filed by the Informant, response filed by the Opposite Party, rejoinder filed by the Informant in its meeting held on 27.03.2024 and decided to pass an appropriate order in due course. Analysis of the Commission 10. It is noted that the Informant is primarily aggrieved by delisting of its plugins from the plugin’s directory maintained by WordPress and the same is alleged to be an Case No. 03 of 2023 Page 4 of 8 abuse of its dominant position in the relevant market by WordPress in violation of provisions of Section 4 of the Act. 11. The first step for analysing any alleged abusive conduct under Section 4 is to identify the relevant market(s) and assessing dominance of the opposite party therein. This is followed by examining the alleged conduct for violation of any provision of Section 4 of the Act. 12. At the outset, it is noted that the alleged conduct of the OP or wordpress.org does not appear to be an abuse of dominant position, if any, for reasons elaborated in this order. However, for completeness, the Commission has delineated the applicable relevant market and assessed dominance of the OP or wordpress.org in the same. 13. It is noted that the wordpress.org is primarily a CMS services which simplifies website development for non- technical users by providing pre-built templates, plugins, and a user-friendly interface for adding, editing, and organizing content and enables them to manage website content easily by reducing the need for extensive coding. Traditional website design and development agencies, as well as in-house website building and management teams, could also be considered to be competing with CMS providers. However, the allegations in the present matter have been made by a business partner i.e., a plugin developer. The alternatives viz. traditional website design and development agencies, as well as in-house website building and management teams may not require plugins developed by third parties and thus, may not be part of the same relevant market in the present matter. Thus, first relevant product market in the present case could be market for provision of Content Management Software (CMS). Furthermore, India may be considered as relevant geographic market. Accordingly, the primary relevant market in the present matter is the market for provision of Content Management Software (CMS) in India. 14. In relation to dominance in this market, it is noted that in addition to wordpress.org, there are multiple players in this market like Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, Joomla, Case No. 03 of 2023 Page 5 of 8 and Drupal which offer similar website building and management services. Based on the available data, it is noted that wordpress.org has the largest market share i.e., 62.5% in the relevant market and thus, can be inferred to be dominant on that basis. 15. In addition to the CMS market, another significant relevant market for the examination of the present matter is the plugins directory market. Provision of a plugin directory is essentially the provision of listing services for plugins developed by third party developers. Users can search for relevant plugins in the plugin directory and can download the same to extend the functionality of their websites. In this regard, it is noted that WordPress.org provides a directory known as the ‘WordPress Plugin Directory’, which lists plugins created by various third-party developers. In relation to plugin directories, it has been submitted that the plugins created for one CMS (such as WordPress) may be listed on the directory meant for another CMS (such as Shopify) by creating a new version through modifications to the code as per the code requirements, guidelines and policies of each CMS and the relevant directory where it is to be listed. Thus, it appears that plugins developed for a specific CMS are often tailored to the architecture of that particular platform. As a result, plugins built for one CMS may not seamlessly function on another CMS without additional modifications or adaptations. This lack of interoperability means that users seeking to enhance their websites built on a particular CMS, such as WordPress, must obtain plugins compatible with that specific platform. 16. It is further noted that in many cases, the plug-ins are also available for download from the developer’s website directly. However, when users download plugins directly from developers' websites, they sacrifice the features such as categorization, search functionality, user reviews, ratings, usage statistics, etc. provided by centralized plugin directories like WordPress Plugin Directory. Therefore, given the specificity of plugins to particular content management systems (CMS) and the non- interchangeability of plugins across different CMS platforms, the relevant product market could be aptly termed as WordPress-Specific Plugin Directories Market. Furthermore, India may be considered as relevant geographic market. Accordingly,