India: CCI initiates antitrust investigation into Whatsapp privacy update

On 24 March 2021, the Indian Competition Authority (CCI) initiated a suo moto antitrust investigation into Whatsapp/Meta regarding the 2021 Whatsapp privacy update. The Competition Authority claimed that users are unilaterally dictated “take it or leave it” terms since they have to accept mandatory data sharing with Facebook without transparency or consent. Furthermore, the CCI noted that the data-sharing provision may have exclusionary effects in the display advertising market which could undermine competition. Finally, data integration also leads to data advantages by improving its own services through the use of non-exclusive data.