NCLAT Modifies CCI Order: WhatsApp's Data Sharing Penalties with Meta Under Review

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has delivered a judgment partly overturning an order by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) against WhatsApp and Meta Platforms. The tribunal annulled the section which forbade WhatsApp from sharing user data with Meta for advertising purposes for five years but maintained an Rs 213-crore penalty against the platforms.

According to NCLAT, WhatsApp's 2021 policy represented an abuse of dominance, creating market denial by imposing unfair data-sharing terms on users. Despite separate legal statuses, both firms were found to have interactions resulting in anti-competitive behavior within the digital advertising sector.

A Meta spokesperson expressed satisfaction with the decision, reiterating their stance on the privacy protections of users' messages. However, NCLAT emphasized that excessive data-sharing practices between WhatsApp and Meta had effectively denied market entry to competitors, thus justifying the penalty imposed by the CCI.