On November 19, India’s Competition Commission (CCI) ruled against Meta, imposing restrictions on data sharing between WhatsApp and other Meta-owned platforms.
The CCI prohibited WhatsApp from sharing user data for advertising purposes with Meta’s other applications for the next five years and fined the tech giant $25.4 million for antitrust violations related to WhatsApp’s 2021 privacy policy.
The 2021 policy, which allowed data sharing between Meta and its subsidiaries, faced global backlash and led to a CCI investigation in March 2021. The commission stated that accessing WhatsApp in India should not be contingent on users agreeing to share their data for purposes unrelated to the messaging service itself.
Meta has expressed strong disagreement with the ruling, maintaining that the 2021 privacy update did not compromise the privacy of users’ personal messages or force users to delete accounts. The company has announced plans to mount a legal challenge against the decision.
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