An Indian tribunal has temporarily suspends a five-year data sharing prohibition between WhatsApp and its owner Meta Platforms, providing significant comfort to the US company, which had warned that its advertising revenue would be impacted.
Meta had appealed the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) rule published in November, which prohibited data exchange between WhatsApp and other Meta businesses for advertising purposes, warning that it could have to scale back some capabilities.
Meta also chastised the CCI for lacking the “technical expertise” to appreciate the implications of its order.
While it considers Meta’s appeal of the antitrust decision, India’s National Company Law Appellate Tribunal decided on Thursday that the data sharing prohibition be suspended.
The panel pointed out that WhatsApp’s economic model “may collapse” as a result of the prohibition.
With over 350 million Facebook users and over 500 million WhatsApp users, India is…
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