oppn parties Delhi HC Allows CCI To Probe WhatsApps' New Privacy Policy

Story Of The Day

Assessee Not Responsible For Ensuring TDS Is Paid To The Government: Delhi HC
OPINIONS : Strongly Expressed

January 22, 2025

People Are Talking About

Rohit Warns Sarfaraz, Police Use It To Warn Two-Wheeler Riders

News Snippets

  • Sikh extremists attacked a cinema hall in London that was playing Kangana Ranaut's controversial film 'Emergency'
  • A Delhi court directed the investigating agencies to senstize officers to collect nail clippings, fingernail scrappings or finger swab in order to get DNA profile as direct evidence of sexual attack is often not present and might result in an offender going scot free
  • Uniform Civil Code rules cleared by state cabinet, likely to be implemented in the next 10 days
  • Supreme Court reiterates that there is no point in arresting the accused after the chargesheet has been filed and the investigation is complete
  • Kolkata court sentences Sanjoy Roy, the sole accused in the R G Kar rape-murder case, to life term. West Bengal government and CBI to appeal in HC for the death penalty
  • Supreme Court stays criminal defamation case against Rahul Gandhi for his remarks against home minister Amit Shah in Jharkhand during the AICC plenary session
  • Government reviews import basket to align it with the policies of the Trump administration
  • NCLT orders liquidation of GoAir airlines
  • Archery - Indian archers bagged 2 silver in Nimes Archery tournament in France
  • Stocks make impressive gain on Monday - Sensex adds 454 points to 77073 and Nifty 141 points to 23344
  • D Gukesh draws with Fabiano Caruana in the Tata Steel chess tournament in the Netherlands
  • Women's U-19 T20 WC - In a stunning game, debutants Nigeria beat New Zealand by 2 runs
  • Rohit Sharma to play under Ajinkye Rahane in Mumbai's Ranji match against J&K
  • Virat Kohli to play in Delhi's last group Ranji trophy match against Saurashtra. This will be his first Ranji match in 12 years
  • The toll in the Rajouri mystery illness case rose to 17 even as the Centre sent a team to study the situation
Calling the case not 'rarest of rare', a court in Kolkata sentenced Sanjay Roy, the only accused in the R G Kar rape-murder case to life in prison until death
oppn parties
Delhi HC Allows CCI To Probe WhatsApps' New Privacy Policy

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2022-08-27 00:41:00

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.

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.

Other Stories You Make Like

Editorials

Turmoil In Mollywood

Turmoil In Mollywood

NDA 3.0: Coalition Dharma

NDA 3.0: Coalition Dharma

In Depth

Supreme Court Gets Strict On Child Pornography

Supreme Court Gets Strict On Child Pornography

Editor's Pick

Budapest Chess Olympiad: India Are World Team Champions

Budapest Chess Olympiad: India Are World Team Champions
© 2014 India Commentary. All rights reserved.