Meta warns CCI ruling could hurt business in India

Meta may have to "roll back or pause" some features in India due to an antitrust directive which banned its WhatsApp messaging service from sharing user data with Meta for advertising purposes, according to a court filing by the U.S. company seen by Reuters.

- Reuters

NEW DELHI:

Meta is seeking to quash the Competition Commission of India's (CCI) November directive which found the company abused its dominance and "coerced" WhatsApp users into accepting a 2021 privacy policy which allegedly expanded user data collection and sharing, giving it an unfair advantage over rivals.

The CCI has imposed a fine of $24.5 million and a five-year ban on the data sharing practice in India, the biggest market for Meta where it has more than 350 million Facebook users and over 500 million people using WhatsApp.

Publicly, Meta has defended its policy change and said it disagrees with the CCI order, but its appeal filing has taken a critical position on the watchdog's functioning and details how unnerved the U.S. firm is about the CCI's decision.