Opinion | The Jio-Facebook deal and our need for a privacy law

The news that Facebook was going to acquire a 9.99% stake in Jio Platforms set the cat among the pigeons. In his video announcing the investment, Reliance Industries Ltd chairman Mukesh Ambani said that one of the benefits of the deal was going to be the integration of WhatsApp with JioMart—Reliance’s newly launched grocery platform. In the days following the announcement, this new WhatsApp-powered service has rolled out a limited pilot in some parts of Mumbai, even in the midst of the nationwide lockdown.

It is not entirely clear at this stage what the eventual shape of this collaboration will be. Ambani’s vision for the platform seemed to include extending it to farmers, teachers, healthcare workers and small- and medium- scale enterprises. In sheer scope, this is as bold as one has come to expect of Reliance. Unfortunately, we do not yet have any details on how it will be implemented. One would imagine that JioMart will want to leverage WhatsApp’s reach as the nation’s communication network of choice to connect all those it intends to bring onto the platform with potential customers. Facebook, for its part, will probably look to Jio’s vast on-ground communications network to deepen its reach in parts of India that it has struggled to access.

Whatever path they take, there will be concerns about the impact this will have on their respective consumer bases, as well as on the market in general. But that is an issue for the Competition Commission of India to examine, and it will doubtless have its hands full trying to get to the bottom of it.