Delhi HC: Dismisses Whatsapp And Facebook's Challenge To CCI Order For Probe On New Privacy Policy

Background Facts

• The renowned social media platform had introduced new Privacy Policies in the beginning of the year 2021 which was challenged in the Court of law as it being violative of the Right to privacy.
• The Competition Commission of India had directed a probe into WhatsApp’s new Privacy Policy on March 24.
• The orders of the CCI were challenged before the Delhi High Court by the social media platforms, Facebook and WhatsApp.

What does CCI have to say

• The CCI was investigating as the new privacy policy would act as an abuse of dominant position of the social media platforms and it would lead to excessive data collection of consumers to get new users.
• The probe would be able to decide if the policy would count as anti-competitive practice or abuse of position and the data collected is likely to provide a profile of the consumer based on their preferences which would amount to stalking.

What do WhatsApp and Facebook have to say

• The social media platforms had contended that the decision of probing into the matter was an abuse of the suo moto jurisdiction of the Commission.
• They contended that the matter that the CCI was probing into was very far from the issue of competitiveness and was mostly into privacy which is being dealt by the petitions filed before the Courts.
• The aim of the new policy was to provide transparency to the users specifically for the business services works and the conversation are end-to-end encrypted, saving it from being seen by WhatsApp.

Observation of the Court

• The Court observed that the CCI could have been careful and waited for the outcome of the petitions before the Supreme Court and High Court but the probe cannot be termed as ‘perverse or wanting jurisdiction’.
• The High Court dismissed the suit stating that it has no merits.

What do you think of the new Privacy Policy introduced by WhatsApp? Tell us in the comments below.