Overview
- Delivering its judgment on November 4, a two-member NCLAT bench of Justice Ashok Bhushan and Arun Baroka granted partial relief to Meta and WhatsApp.
- The tribunal struck down the CCI’s five-year prohibition on sharing WhatsApp user data with other Meta companies for advertising and set aside the Section 4(2)(e) leveraging charge.
- The rest of the CCI’s November 2024 order stands, including a ₹213.14 crore penalty tied to findings that WhatsApp’s 2021 policy imposed unfair conditions on users.
- The case stems from WhatsApp’s January 2021 update that expanded data collection and made certain cross‑platform sharing mandatory, which the CCI treated as exploitative abuse.
- In January 2025 the NCLAT had stayed the data‑sharing ban and required a 50% deposit of the penalty, and transparency, opt‑out, and choice‑modification requirements remain in effect following today’s ruling.