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ARTICLE · 05 FEBRUARY 2025

NCLAT Stays CCI Order - Gives A 'Blue Tick' To Messaging Major To Continue Sharing User Data

Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan
Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan
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Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan

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The National Company Law Tribunal ("NCLAT"), on 23 January 2025, has stayed the direction issued by the Competition Commission of India...

IndiaAntitrust/Competition Law
L.Badri Narayanan
L.Badri Narayanan
Neelambera Sandeepan
Neelambera Sandeepan
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The National Company Law Tribunal ("NCLAT"), on 23 January 2025, has stayed the direction issued by the Competition Commission of India ("CCI") to WhatsApp LLC ("WhatsApp") which prohibited it from sharing user data collected on its Over-the-Top messaging app on the smartphone (the WhatsApp application) with other Meta companies for advertising purposes ("Stay Order")1. Meta operates a multi-sided ecosystem encompassing platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, connecting billions of users with advertisers, businesses and developers.

CCI, on 18 November 2024, had found WhatsApp (a wholly owned subsidiary of Meta) to be abusing its dominant position by introducing a Privacy Policy Update in 2021 ("Policy Update") which coerced users to accept its terms or leave the messaging app. The data sharing clause in the Policy Update was found to be (i) ambiguous, not giving any clarity on what kind and what quantity of user data will be collected

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