The digital giant policing challenge

Meta’s Dominance in India
• Meta, a subsidiary of Facebook and Instagram, was fined ₹213.14 crore by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in November 2024 for a privacy policy update.
• The policy required users to consent to expanded data-sharing, allowing Meta to access data from all of its other platforms.
• The updated policy was viewed as a strategy to strengthen WhatsApp’s market power, potentially harming competition and hindering other messaging platforms from competing on equal terms.

The Role of Data in Digital Markets
• Data is the new oil in the 21st century economy, with data playing a foundational role in creating and sustaining dominance in digital markets.
• Meta leverages vast data pools collected from billions of users to refine algorithms, offer hyper-targeted advertising, and create personalized experiences.
• Google was ned ₹1,337.76 crore in 2022 for abusing its dominant position across several markets in India.

Global Regulatory Concerns
• Meta faces antitrust litigation in the U.S. over its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, accused of creating barriers to entry for competitors.
• Google has been sued for monopolistic practices, with the US District Court for the District of Columbia finding Google in violation of the Sherman Act due to exclusive agreements in search and advertising markets.
• Australia has taken steps to address the dominance of digital platforms, with the Facebook-Germany case highlighting how data misuse can erode consumer privacy and hinder competition.

India’s Competition Law
• Amendments to the Act should introduce “data monopolization” as a parameter for assessing market dominance.
• The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 provides an opportunity to complement competition law by regulating data collection, consent, and usage.
• India could draw inspiration from the EU’s integration of competition law with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and GDPR to create frameworks that tackle data exploitation and anticompetitive practices comprehensively.