Delhi HC Allows CCI To Probe WhatsApps' New Privacy Policy
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2022-08-27 00:41:00
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
When any
company is in a dominant position in its field and has a huge user base, like
WhatsApp, it can start treating that user base as captive slaves. This is
exactly what is happening now with WhatsApp. The app issued a new privacy policy in 2021.
The policy lays out the terms which say that the data of all WhatsApp users
will be shared across all companies or platforms of the Meta group, like
Facebook and Instagram. There is no opt-out option available to users of
WhatsApp - as the Delhi High Court has pointed out - which has made the
Competition Corporation of India (CCI) to step in. The WhatsApp policy not
allowing users to opt-out of data sharing is a restrictive trade practice which
the company is trying to enforce on its users taking advantage of it dominant
position in the cross platform instant messaging, audio and video calling, document
and video sharing application field.
While it is
true that the services of the users who do not accept its new policy will not
be terminated and they will just face restrictions like not being able to
receive incoming calls or notification after a few weeks. Their calls and
messages will still remain end-to-end encrypted. But the Delhi HC objected to
the fact that the company was not giving a choice to the captive users to
exercise their right to deny sharing their data with other group companies. It
said that WhatsApp is adopting a 'take-it-or-leave-it' attitude which makes its
new policy open to CCI scrutiny as it is restrictive trade policy. It dismissed
the appeal by the company to stop the CCI probe.
With India
still not having a comprehensive data law, it is upon courts and other
institutions like CCI to prevent companies from using their dominant position in
their respective field to share customer data without their express consent. It
is also upon them to prevent companies from obtaining this consent by leaving
the user with no other option like WhatsApp is doing. Also, the government must
not delay in enacting a comprehensive law on data storage and sharing to ensure
that the data collected by companies is not misused.
