For years, Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, has treated user data as the “exhaust” of its messaging engine—a valuable byproduct to be harvested and refined for its advertising machine. But on February 3, 2026, India’s Supreme Court suggested a different metaphor: theft.
In a hearing that could redefine the economics of the internet in the world’s most populous digital market, a three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant signaled that “consent” in the age of monopolies may be little more than a legal fiction. The court’s observations go beyond simple privacy; they strike at the heart of Meta’s business model, questioning whether a platform’s market dominance renders the “choice” to share data essentially coercive.
When and where did the friction begin?
The friction began in 2021, when WhatsApp issued a “take-it-or-leave-it” update to its privacy policy. The update allowed for increased data sharing between the messaging app and its parent, Meta. While WhatsApp insisted that end-to-end encryption kept messages private, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) saw the move as an abuse of dominance. It argued that for the average Indian user, “leaving” WhatsApp is not a viable option as it is the country’s digital town square. The CCI slapped Meta with a ₹213.14 crore ($25m) penalty—a sum that is pocket change for a trillion-dollar company, but a significant regulatory shot across the bow.
Meta then appealed the decision in the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), which last year delivered a nuanced, if controversial, verdict. The NCLAT upheld the CCI’s finding that Meta had abused its market position. However, it significantly “softened” the regulatory blow.
While it retained the financial penalty, the NCLAT set aside a crucial CCI directive that would have barred Meta from sharing user data with its other entities for advertising purposes for a period of five years.
The NCLAT’s rationale was rooted in a traditional interpretation of corporate integration. It appeared to argue that while the method of obtaining consent was coercive, the act of sharing data across a parent and subsidiary was a standard business practice in the digital age.
The tribunal likely feared that a total five-year moratorium on data-sharing was a disproportionate “structural remedy” that could break the technical synergy of Meta’s platforms. Furthermore, with the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act of 2023 then looming on the horizon, the NCLAT seemed content to let privacy-specific legislation handle the nuances of data flows, rather than a competition regulator using the blunt instrument of an antitrust ban.
Why did Meta appeal to the Supreme Court?
Unhappy with the penalty and NCLAT’s verdict, Meta, eventually reached the Supreme Court. However, the apex court seemed in no mood for compromise. Chief Justice Kant’s retort to Meta’s lawyers—that opting out of WhatsApp in India is akin to “opting out of the country”—captures the “network effect” trap that competition regulators globally are struggling to dismantle.
Yet, the most provocative argument came from Justice Joymalya Bagchi, who shifted the debate from privacy to “value.” India’s Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act of 2023 focuses primarily on the sanctity of personal information. But Justice Bagchi noted a vacuum in the law regarding the “rent-sharing” of data. If Meta uses a rural Indian’s behavioural trends to sell targeted ads, who owns the profit derived from that data?
This “data-as-property” logic aligns India more closely with the European Union’s Digital Services Act than with the more laissez-faire approach of the United States. By impleading the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), the court forced the government to consider whether privacy is enough, or if the economic “value” of a citizen’s digital footprint requires a new form of sovereign protection.
What happens next?
The Solicitor General’s remark—that users are “not only consumers, but also products”—reflects a growing fatigue with the “free” internet model. When a user discusses medicine with a doctor and receives a pharmaceutical ad minutes later, the court views this not as a feat of engineering, but as an intrusion.
Meta’s defense remains rooted in the “cleverly-crafted” language of terms and conditions. But the Chief Justice’s “simple query” regarding whether a domestic helper could navigate such a policy serves as a reminder that in a country with varying levels of digital literacy, transparency is not the same as understanding.
The court has now issued an ultimatum: Meta must provide an undertaking to stop sharing personal data, or face the dismissal of its case and “very strict conditions.” As the case heads toward interim directions on February 9, the message is clear. In the eyes of the Indian judiciary, a billion “silent consumers” are no longer willing to be the raw material for Meta’s bottom line. The era of “decent theft” may be coming to a close.
Published – February 04, 2026 08:16 am IST
