CCI fines Meta Rs 213 crore for forcing users to accept data sharing policy

India's antitrust watchdog the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has slapped a fine of Rs 213 crore (approx $25 million) on Facebook-parent company Meta for abusing its dominant position by forcing its users to accept WhatsApp’s updated privacy policy in 2021 or lose access to the platform or its features.

CCI has also imposed a five-year restriction on WhatsApp from sharing user data with other Meta companies for advertising purposes. Additionally, the CCI has prohibited WhatsApp from making data sharing a prerequisite for accessing its services in India.

The antitrust regulator found that WhatsApp held a dominant position in the Indian smartphone messaging app market and it was unfair on its part to force users to accept the expanded data collection and sharing within the Meta family of apps without an opt-out.

In January 2021, WhatsApp updated its terms of services and privacy policy to inform users about its practice of sharing certain users data such as phone numbers with Facebook. WhatsApp threatened users to accept the new privacy policy or lose access to their accounts. losing functionalities in the app.

After facing backlash from users, privacy advocates and lawmakers in some countries, WhatsApp extended the deadline to May and also assured that no accounts will be deleted or functionalities will be restricted for users who did not accept the updated privacy policy.

Prior to the 2021 update, WhatsApp's privacy policy offered users the choice to share their data with Facebook.

The tech giant has also been ordered by CCI to implement specific measures within a set timeframe to rectify these violations.

India is WhatsApp’s largest market with more than 400 million monthly active users and a penetration rate of 97.1% among messaging and chat app users in the country, according to Statista.

Though Facebook’s poor track record on data sharing is quite notorious, WhatsApp was widely regarded as a privacy-focused app that kept conversations private with end-to-end encryption and keeping WhatsApp user data within the app.

Despite its commitment to privacy, WhatsApp collects a significant amount of personal user data including phone number, IP address, location, contacts, user content, financial info and usage data.

In 2020, Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov accused WhatsApp of secretly building backdoors to comply with the law enforcement agencies and avoid a ban.

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