Delhi HC dismisses WhatsApp, FB pleas against CCI order to probe privacy policy
The petitions by WhatsApp and Facebook challenging the decision of the Competition Commission of India to probe the new privacy policy of the intermediary was dismissed by the Delhi High Court on April 22. The court said there was no merit in the pleas and declined to pass any order against the CCI investigation.
The CCI on March 24 called for completion of investigation after concluding that the conduct of WhatsApp in “sharing of users’ data with other Facebook companies is neither fully transparent nor based on voluntary and specific user consent.” It said it appeared unfair to the users.
Also read: Know why WhatsApp’s new privacy policy should worry you
It also said it was dealing with the messaging app’s new privacy policy that could lead to “excessive data collection” of consumers, the use and sharing of the data in an anti-competitive context.
ASG Aman Lekhi for CCI had argued that the matter was not of privacy but of access to data and therefore, the CCI was acting well within its ambit.
WhatsApp had argued that since the issue of its privacy policy was before the Supreme Court, the CCI did not need to order the probe. Facebook, which owns the instant messaging app, also filed a similar petition challenging the competition watchdog’s March 24 decision.
The High Court said though it would have been “prudent” for the CCI to wait for the outcome of the petitions against the privacy policy in the Supreme Court and the Delhi HC, but not doing so would not make its investigation order “perverse” or “wanting of jurisdiction”.
In January this year, WhatsApp postponed the rollout of privacy policy from February 8 to May 15after it came under criticism for its new update which requires users to agree to share their business account data with Facebook. The CCI on its own took cognizance of the matter and ordered a thorough investigation to ascertain “the full extent, scope and impact of data sharing through involuntary consent of users”.
Also read: Facebook agrees to pay $5 billion penalty for privacy violations
