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After Meta had warned that India’s data sharing ban could collapse WhatsApp’s business model, tribunal suspends ban
Meta Platforms has been handed some welcome news in India, after a ban on data sharing was suspended, amid warnings about its impact on WhatsApp’s business model.
Reuters reported that an Indian tribunal has now temporarily suspended a five-year data sharing ban between WhatsApp and owner Meta Platforms.
The issue harks back to a privacy decision back in January 2021, when it was revealed that WhatsApp would share user data with owner Facebook (now Meta Platforms) as a condition of its use going forward.
Privacy change
The 2021 changes were compulsory, and WhatsApp users were not be able to continue using WhatsApp if they didn’t agree to the new terms and conditions.
Previously users had had the option of deciding whether or not they would allow sharing with other Meta companies.
This prompted India’s Competition Commission of India (CCI) in March 2021 to open an official antitrust investigation into the January 2021 WhatsApp privacy change.
And in November 2024 India’s competition regulator fined Meta Platforms 2.13 billion rupees ($25.3m, £20m) over antitrust violations in association with this change.
Ban suspended
Reuters noted that Meta had challenged the CCI directive issued in November that imposed a ban on data sharing between WhatsApp and other Meta entities for advertising purposes, warning it may have to roll back some features.
Meta had also criticised the CCI for not having the “technical expertise” to understand the ramifications of its order.
Meta’s appeal against the antitrust order is slated to be heard in March 2025.
But now Reuters has reported that on Thursday, India’s National Company Law Appellate Tribunal has ordered a suspension of the data sharing ban, while it continues to hear Meta’s challenge to the antitrust ruling.
The ban “may lead to a collapse” of WhatsApp’s business model, the tribunal reportedly noted.
India is the largest market for Meta, as it has more than 350 million Facebook users and over 500 million people using WhatsApp in that country.
Meta had reportedly earlier told the appeals tribunal that it may have to “roll back or pause” some features such as those that would allow an Indian fashion business, for example, to personalise ads on Facebook or Instagram based on their interaction with a WhatsApp user.
Convoluted backstory
But there is no doubt that the data-sharing policy change in 2021 had triggered global privacy concerns among antitrust regulators, and privacy campaigners.
The EU, via the Irish data protection regulator, had fined Meta 225m euros (£188m) in September 2021 over earlier data sharing policy changes that took place after Meta bought WhatsApp back in 2014.
WhatsApp cofounder Jan Koum had at the time of the acquisition in 2014 had denied that WhatsApp would have to follow Facebook’s privacy policies.
An investigation by the UK’s Information Commissioners Office (ICO) began in August 2016 when in that year Facebook had controversially decided to update WhatsApp’s terms of service and privacy policy to include data sharing with the social network.
Indeed, the move prompted such outrage that a few months later Facebook in November 2016 had to suspend that data sharing between its social network and WhatsApp across the European Union.
That same month WhatsApp also suspended such data sharing activity in the UK.
In March 2018, the UK’s ICO concluded a two-year investigation into the data-sharing practices of WhatsApp.
WhatsApp at the time signed a public pledge not to share any user’s data with Facebook after the ICO ruled that doing so would be illegal under the data protection act and before the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May 2018.
However WhatsApp’s co-founders, Brian Acton and Jan Koum then departed Facebook, in 2017 and 2018 respectively, and in 2021 Facebook had finally implemented its long-sought after data-sharing change.
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