Meta Files Appeal in NCLAT to Challenge More than Rs 200 Crore Penalty on WhatsApp

The penalty of Rs 213 crore imposed on the popular instant messaging platform WhatsApp has been challenged in the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT). It has been imposed for the update made in the privacy policy on WhatsApp in 2021. Meta, which owns WhatsApp, has challenged the order of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in NCLAT on Monday.

NCLAT has been told that this order of CCI will have an impact on the entire industry and hence there is a need to hear this matter quickly. NCLAT has fixed the hearing of this case on January 16. In November last year, CCI had imposed a penalty of Rs 213.1 crore on Meta for misusing its dominant position in enforcing WhatsApp’s privacy policy. CCI’s investigation had found that unfair conditions were imposed under the Competition Act in the 2021 update of WhatsApp’s private policy. In this, all the users of WhatsApp were forced to agree to increase the scope of data collection and share this data with Meta Group.

Due to this, questions were raised regarding the privacy of users and fairness in the market. In the CCI decision, this was termed as an unfair condition, which is a violation of the Competition Act. CCI had also directed American company Meta and WhatsApp to take some improvement measures within a certain period. It was said in these instructions that there will be no sharing of data for advertisements. There is a ban on sharing users’ data with Meta firms for the purpose of advertisements on WhatsApp.

Additionally, WhatsApp will have to clearly state what data is shared with Meta’s firms and link each type of data to specific purposes. CCI had also found this company guilty of creating obstacles for competitors in the online display advertising market. The company uses the data of WhatsApp users for this. Recently, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has removed the limit on adding UPI users on WhatsApp Pay.