WhatsApp Gets Relief in India, NCLAT Suspends Data Sharing Ban, Facebook

Instant messaging platform WhatsApp has got a big relief. The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has suspended the ban on data sharing on Meta, the American company that owns WhatsApp. Meta had argued that WhatsApp’s ban on data sharing would harm its advertising business.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) had banned the sharing of data between WhatsApp and other Meta firms. Meta has also criticized CCI for not having the ‘technical expertise’ to understand the implications of this order. NCLAT on Thursday ordered suspension of this ban on sharing of data. The hearing on the challenge given by Meta to the CCI decision will continue. India is the biggest market for this company that operates the social media platform Facebook. This company has more than 35 crore users in the country. Apart from this, more than 50 crore people use WhatsApp.

A Meta spokesperson said that the company welcomes this decision and will assess the next steps regarding it. CCI did not respond to a request for comment on the decision. Earlier, Meta had said that due to the order of CCI, along with the rights of the users, its rights are also being curtailed. On this, CCI had said that it had analyzed its impact before giving the order and this order is not going against the case going on in the Supreme Court. CCI had told that the Supreme Court is hearing this case from the perspective of Article 21 of the Constitution, whereas CCI has investigated it from the perspective of competition.

In Europe, Meta has given users the option to accept or not the terms related to the privacy policy. However, users in India do not have the option to withdraw their consent to this policy. In November last year, CCI had imposed a penalty of Rs 213.14 crore on Meta for misusing its dominant position. This matter is related to the privacy policy of WhatsApp implemented about four years ago.

(This news has not been edited by the NDTV team. It is published directly from the syndicated feed.)