Reconciling Data, Privacy and Competition in the 21st Century: India’s Battle with Personal Data Protection

Abstract

In today's digital world, there has been much debate on the impact of data on competition and how it affects businesses and consumers. In reality, leveraging data unethically could have far- reaching implications such as abuse of dominance, creating barriers to entry and disrupting privacy all of which have negative consequences on consumer welfare. The reaction to this is that Competition Authorities across the globe have attempted to step in and regulate data across industries and this has led to a tussle between data protection authorities and competition authorities. This paper seeks to analyze this ongoing tussle through the lens of the 2021 WhatsApp Privacy Policy issue by looking at past jurisprudence both nationally and globally on dealing with data and the remedies available under Indian Law under both the Competition Law and Technology law. The paper also studies the effects of India not having defined legislation dedicated to protecting data and the fact that the proposed legislation, the Personal Data Protection Bill 2019 also adequately lacks on the same lines in tackling these newly conceptualised Concealed Data Practices that negatively affect both competition and data privacy. The conclusion of this paper highlights these glaring gaps and suggests changes that could be implemented to set India's competition and data jurisprudence on the right track.