The Competition Commission of India (CCI) lashed out at Facebook and WhatsApp on Thursday (July 21), telling the Delhi High Court (HC) that it had not been able to “move an inch” in its investigation into the messaging platform’s 2021 privacy policy update.
The competition watchdog reportedly told a bench comprised of Justices Satish Chandra Sharma and Subramonium Prasad that the investigation was ‘virtually halted’ due to the time granted by the Court to both Meta-owned platforms to file replies in the matter. “The investigation has been ongoing for 16 months… We can’t even move an inch. “We must be allowed to investigate,” a lawyer for the CCI said. The comments came as the Supreme Court was hearing appeals from WhatsApp and Facebook against a previous order that dismissed their earlier pleas against the CCI’s investigation into WhatsApp’s updated privacy policy.