Monday was the last day for furnishing the information sought by the Competition Commission in relation to a probe ordered by it in March. The information was sought after the single judge had on April 22 dismissed WhatsApp and Facebook’s appeal against the probe.
WhatsApp and its parent firm, Facebook, on Monday, in a fresh application urged the Delhi High Court to stay the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) notice asking them to furnish certain information with regard to the probe into the messaging platform’s new privacy policy. The appeal against the order of a single judge by the two firms is pending before a division bench of the HC
A vacation bench comprising justices Anup Jairam Bhambhani and Jasmeet Singh while reserving their order said that it would not like to go into the merits of the case as the regular bench led by Chief Justice was scheduled to hear the main petitions on July 9. However, it said that it will pass an order later in the day.
The CCI had on March 24 ordered a probe into the updated privacy policy of WhatsApp for breaching the antitrust law. “CCI is of prima facie opinion that the ‘take-it-or-leave-it nature of privacy policy and terms of service of WhatsApp and the information-sharing stipulations mentioned therein merit a detailed investigation in view of the market position and market power enjoyed by WhatsApp,” the CCI order had stated. The CCI in January had on its own decided to look into WhatsApp’s new privacy policy on the basis of news reports.
The single judge had earlier on April 22 rejected the petitions by Facebook and WhatsApp, saying though it would have been “prudent” for the CCI to await the outcome of petitions in the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court against WhatsApp’s new privacy policy, not doing so would not make the regulator’s order “perverse” or “wanting of jurisdiction”.
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