The Delhi High Court adjourned its hearing in the appeal of Meta and subsidiary WhatsApp, against a single-judge bench’s order dismissing their plea to squash a Competition Commission of India probe into the messaging app’s 2021 privacy policy.
A division bench of Justices Poonam Bamba and Rajesh Shakdher adjourned the matter after WhatsApp’s counsel, senior advocate Harish Salve, said the Personal Data Protection Bill was yet to be passed by Parliament
In January 2021, the CCI had decided to look into WhatsApp’s privacy policy, following allegations that its implementation allowing greater data sharing between WhatsApp and Facebook (the company later renamed itself Meta) would violate the Competition Act 2000. On March 24 last year, the competition
directed its director general to probe the new privacy policy.
The data-sharing policy seemed to have exclusionary effects, which have the potential to undermine the competitive process and create further barriers to market entry, the CCI had said in its order. WhatsApp and its parent had also challenged the CCI’s order asking them to furnish certain information for the purpose of the inquiry conducted by it.
