WhatsApp Faces March 16 Deadline for CCI Compliance

The Competition Commission of India's (CCI) scrutiny of WhatsApp's 2021 privacy policy began in March of that year, when it initiated an investigation into the "take-it-or-leave-it" nature of the update. The CCI found this policy to be an abuse of WhatsApp's dominant market position, alleging it coerced users into data sharing with its parent company, Meta. At the heart of the issue was the removal of the user's choice to opt-out of sharing their data with other Meta-owned platforms, a feature that was available in the 2016 policy update. The CCI argued that this mandatory data sharing for advertising purposes created unfair conditions for users and could deny market access to competing advertisers by leveraging WhatsApp's vast user data. This led to the imposition of a ₹213.14 crore (approximately $25.3 million) penalty on Meta in November 2024 for abusing its dominant position. The legal battle saw WhatsApp and Meta challenge the CCI's jurisdiction, arguing that data privacy falls under the purview of information technology laws, not competition law. The case progressed through the Delhi High Court and eventually to the Supreme Court. In early February 2026, the Supreme Court strongly criticized the policy, stating it would not permit the platform to "play with" the privacy rights of Indian citizens. Following the Supreme Court's strong stance, WhatsApp informed the court that it would comply with the CCI's directives. This includes providing users with an opt-out option for data sharing that is not essential to WhatsApp's core services. While a five-year ban on sharing WhatsApp data with Meta for advertising purposes was initially imposed by the CCI, this was later set aside by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), a decision the CCI is now challenging in the Supreme Court.