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The court said that such an act amounts to "theft", stating that a clear message is needed to be sent to WhatsApp and Meta that they cannot be allowed to play with privacy of people in India.
The court said that it may need to beyond privacy concerns, observing that through such data sharing the behavioural tendencies of the consumers can be studied, monetised, and leveraged for targeting with ads.
The apex court further warned that it will not allow WhatsApp to share user data with parent company Meta. It expressed its displeasure stating that WhatsApp has complete monopoly in the market, and the only choice that the company is giving to customers is to either share data or stop using the service.
The court noted that a common man could not understand the technical privacy policies, claiming that sometimes even the learned judges cannot understand such technicalities.
The Supreme Court also questioned how within moments of mentioning a product in a WhatsApp message, one starts to get ads about that product.
The case stems after both the companies had challenged a Competition Commission of India (CCI) order that charged them for imposing unfair conditions on the users.
Meta, and WhatsApp challenged the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) judgement that upheld the CCI penalty of
The CCI also moved to Supreme Court to challenge the NCLAT judgement as it had allowed WhatsApp to continue to share user data with parent company Meta.
CCI had charged Meta, WhatsApp with abuse of dominant market position citing the WhatsApp privacy policy of 2021.
WhatsApp had introduced the 2021 privacy policy, allowing for user info to be shared with parent Meta, gave no-opt out to users.
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