India: Delhi High Court ruling on CCI authority to conduct antitrust investigation into Whatsapp privacy update

On 22 April 2021, the Delhi High Court ruled that the Indian Competition Authority (CCI) can conduct 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.