WhatsApp may face some heat from the Competition Commission of India (CCI).
WhatsApp has been in the news for the past few days over its new privacy policy. The new update provides additional information on WhatsApp services and how the app processes user data. Following the announcement, the Facebook-owned app has received severe backlash from users.
The new WhatsApp privacy policy could be viewed as an abuse of its dominant position. Although there are plenty of WhatsApp alternatives that offer better privacy and features, users often find it tough to switch to other apps due to the lack of interoperability. The dominant positioning coupled with the updated privacy policy that allows metadata sharing with Facebook apps could attract the CCI’s attention, according to The Economic Times (ET).
Moneycontrol could not independently verify the report.
The update gave users an option to either accept the new terms or delete their WhatsApp account. The new update did not give users an option to opt out of sharing data with the Facebook apps. This could be a reason for people to accept the new privacy policy terms as switching to other apps may result in them losing out on their chats and related data. WhatsApp has over 400 million active users in India.
WhatsApp has pushed the implementation of its new privacy policy to May 15. The company said it is doing so to clear up misinformation around privacy and security. The messaging app stated that neither WhatsApp nor Facebook cannot see your messages or hear your calls. It also does not keep a log of the people a user calls or messages.
The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) filed a petition in the Supreme Court that urged WhatsApp, as well as its parent company Facebook to withdraw its new privacy policy. As per CAIT, WhatsApp has been fraudulently collecting personal user data.
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