Facebook has been on the radar of antitrust regulators around the world, and India is no different. Thus, when the company acquired a 9.99% stake in Jio Platforms, the Competition Commision of India (CCI) was skeptical of the merger, even though it gave the approval promptly. However, Facebook has argued that its investment in India’s up and coming digital platform will involve limited data exchange, adding that data sharing is not the purpose of the deal.
Facebook and Reliance Jio are some of the biggest names in the Indian technology market. Jio is India’s largest telecom provider, and has 100s of millions of users, and thus, a lot of personal data. Facebook, being a social media company, is no stranger to data as well, and now with its acquisition of Fitbit, could also get health record of users. Thus, if all this data were to be combined together, it will give the entity unformidable power over its competitors, risking the formation a monopoly of sorts.
Thus, CCI took up the matter with Facebook directly, and asked the tech giant about the data exchange between the two new partners. The company agreed that there will in fact be some data exchange, but it will be on a very limited scale. This will be done in favour of facilitating e-commerce transactions on JioMart, with Facebook adding that the acquisition was not made specifically for data sharing.
The company also says that the data that will be exchanged will be proportionate, and done “solely for the purpose of implementing the Proposed Commercial Arrangement.” The data will neither be exclusionary, inimitable nor rare, and Facebook promises that substitutes of it exist. Moreover, it will be “processed in accordance with applicable law and parties’ data policies.”
While the deal has been approved, CCI still remains skeptical, and let both parties know that it might intervene in the future if this merger leads to any anticompetitive practices.
