Meta: Meta to appeal CCI penalty, says 2021 update was about providing users transparency

Social media giant Meta on Tuesday said it plans to appeal against the Competition Commission of India’s decision to fine it Rs 213.14 crore for allegedly abusing its dominant position regarding the changes it proposed in 2021 to WhatsApp’s privacy policy.

“We disagree with the CCI’s decision and plan to appeal. As a reminder, the 2021 update did not change the privacy of people’s personal messages and was offered as a choice for users at the time. We also ensured no one would have their accounts deleted or lose functionality of the WhatsApp service because of this update,” a Meta spokesperson said.

On Monday, the CCI fined Meta Rs 213.14 crore for abusing its dominant position. The competition watchdog also said that Meta would not share WhatsApp user data with any of its other platforms for advertising purposes for five years from Monday.

“WhatsApp’s policy should include a detailed explanation of the user data shared with other Meta Companies or Meta Company Products. This explanation should specify the purpose of data sharing, linking each type of data to its corresponding purpose,” CCI said in its order on Monday.

In March 2021, the CCI launched a suo-moto investigation into WhatsApp’s privacy policy update with a prima facie view that WhatsApp’s then update violated CCI’s rules through “its exploitative and exclusionary conduct…in the garb of policy update”.

In its statement on Tuesday, Meta said that the 2021 update “was about introducing optional business features on WhatsApp and provided further transparency about how we collect and use data”.

Also Read: ETtech Explainer: CCI’s Rs 213-crore penalty on MetaThe company, the spokesperson said, was “committed to finding a path forward” that allowed it to continue providing the experiences that people and businesses have come to expect from Meta.

In January 2021, Meta started rolling out a new privacy policy for WhatsApp users which said that the data of the business interactions that users made on the platform would be shared with Facebook. It had then also warned users that those who failed to accept the new policy terms would be barred from using the services on the platform.

The company, however, changed its stance and rolled back the policy update following backlash from users and the government as well.