WhatsApp Penalty: Meta Challenge CCI’s Rs 213-Crore Charge
Meta faces the challenge of the RS 213 crore WhatsApp penalty imposed by the Competition Commission of India for its privacy update. The social media giant finds a January 16 court hearing before NCLAT.
WhatsApp Penalty Over its Privacy Policy
According to an exclusive report, Meta Inc ( Facebook Inc) has put an appeal through the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) as opposed to the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) RS 213 crore.
WhatsApp penalty is imposed due the CCI said “abuse of its dominant position” through WhatsApp when it launched its privacy terms and conditions in 2021. According to CCI, it was unfair for WhatsApp and competition. Therefore, in November 2022, the CCI (Competition Commission of India) penalized Meta(Facebook) of RS 213 crore.
Two experienced lawyers, Mukul Rohatgi and Kapil Sibal representatives of Meta, appeal for an emergency hearing. They assert that the Competition Commission of India’s decision has a strong effect on the industry. The NCLAT completely agreed with its decision and made an urgent court hearing on 16 January to solve this matter.
In the previous year, CCI asked WhatsApp and Meta, to stop the tests and practice to bring the particular change within a specific period or deadline. During the inquiry, CCI noted that the 2021 WhatsApp privacy policy fixed the users to take it or to move way, which means that users have no choice to make the decision.
This WhatsApp policy forced the user to allow it otherwise dropped WhatsApp for communication. So, it is not a good thing for users. This policy requires the user to permit and share private data with other companies owned by Meta. Users have no suitable option out of this data sharing.
The Competition Commission of India found that WhatsApp gathers and shares the user’s data with other companies. So, it was very difficult for other competitor companies in the messaging app field and also in the advertising market and it was against Section 4(2)(c) and Section 4(2)(e) of the law).
Now, WhatsApp ordered not to share user data with other companies for advertising for the next 5 years.After five years, WhatsApp has to give a clean and clear reason for sharing user data with others otherwise it has to remove the data-sharing requirement to use WhatsApp.
Lastly, all the Indian users who agreed with the 2021 WhatsApp policy received a pop notification to prevent data sharing with Meta.
To know court’s decsion and its hearing, move to our page on “NCLAT accepts WhatsApp’s Appeal.
Note: Read out the breaking news about WhatsApp cybercrime click on the social media misused.
