The Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Monday imposed a fine of Rs 213.14 crore on social media company Meta. This fine was imposed for adopting unfair business practices in relation to the WhatsApp privacy update in 2021. Further, CCI has directed Meta to cease and desist from anti-competitive behaviour.
The competition regulator on Monday imposed a fine of Rs 213.14 crore on Meta for abusing its dominance, an order said. CCI, while passing the order against misusing dominance, said that the fine is related to how WhatsApp implemented its 2021 privacy policy, how it collected user data and shared it with other companies in the market. Went.
On the other hand, CCI has also directed WhatsApp not to share user data collected on its platform with other meta products or companies for advertising purposes for a period of five years. Due to this order of CCI, Meta or rather WhatsApp has got a big blow. WhatsApp alone has more than 500 million monthly active users in the country. Let us also tell you what kind of information has been given by CCI.
What was found in CCI investigation
The CCI in March 2021 began investigating WhatsApp’s revised privacy policy, which enabled expanded scope of data collection as well as mandatory data sharing with Facebook (now Meta) and its companies. Earlier, since 2016, users had the option to decide whether they wanted to share their data with the company or not. The policy, which will be applicable for users from January 2021, was to be effective from February 2021. Users were required to accept the new terms to keep WhatsApp running.
After that there was a lot of criticism regarding this and Meta canceled this rollout. WhatsApp also later issued a clarification stating that the policy update would not affect the privacy of users’ personal messages with their friends or family and emphasized that the changes were related to optional business features offered by the application.
Such allegations against Meta
After more than three and a half years of investigation, CCI found that WhatsApp’s ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ policy update was not fair. This forced all users to accept the extended data collection terms and share data within the meta group without any opt-out. CCI said that this update brought by Meta forces the users to implement it. Undermines their autonomy, and abuses Meta’s dominant position. According to the Commission, Meta (through WhatsApp) has violated Section 4(2)(a)(i).
The Commission said that Meta has taken advantage of its dominant position in over-the-top (OTT) messaging apps on smartphones to protect its position in the online display advertising market. Additionally, the sharing of WhatsApp users’ data among Meta companies for purposes other than providing the WhatsApp service has made it difficult for other companies to enter the market and for other existing companies to compete with Meta. .
