India’s competition watchdog has ordered WhatsApp to stop sharing user data with other Meta units for advertising purposes for five years and also levied a fine of $25.4 million for antitrust violations related to WhatsApp’s controversial 2021 privacy policy.

India's competition watchdog directed WhatsApp to refrain from sharing user data for advertising purposes with other applications owned by Meta for a period of five years and fined the U.S. tech giant $25.

India’s competition watchdog directed WhatsApp to refrain from sharing user data for advertising purposes with other applications owned by Meta

In January 2021, WhatsApp had notified users that it was updating its privacy policy – which was mandatory for them to accept – with an expanded scope of data collection and data sharing between Meta companies.

CCI bans WhatsApp from sharing data with Meta for 5 years, fines Rs 213.14 crore for antitrust violations in India.

Tech giants, including Apple and Meta face new regulatory challenges with India’s proposed EU-like antitrust law. Read more at straitstimes.com.

The watchdog concluded that the 2021 policy update by WhatsApp on a "take-it-or-leave-it" basis constitutes an imposition of unfair conditions.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has imposed a fine worth approximately ₹213.1 crore ($25.4 million) on WhatsApp over antitrust breaches related to the privacy policy case running since 2021.