The CCI’s recent order directing an investigation into WhatsApp’s privacy policy provides us with the opportunity to look at how competition regulators, both in India and abroad, have sought to regulate data collection and sharing. There are multiple concerns to be balanced in this process – the ability of businesses with large data sets to better serve customers, entry barriers to new business with access to comparatively smaller data sets, and increased consumer dependency on a limited set of players. The CCI’s recent order could be indicative of its recognition of these concerns and its intention to take a more interventionist approach where it believes that user data is being exploited in a manner that creates entry barriers or otherwise adversely impacts competition or consumers’ interests.
