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India Tribunal Lifts WhatsApp Data-Sharing Ban but Upholds Meta’s $25 Million Fine

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An Indian appeals tribunal has overturned a five-year ban preventing WhatsApp from sharing user data with other Meta-owned entities but upheld a $25.4 million fine, delivering a mixed verdict for the U.S. tech giant.

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) ruled on Tuesday that the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) 2024 order lacked sufficient justification for restricting data sharing, calling the regulator’s rationale “missing altogether.” However, it agreed with the CCI’s finding that Meta had abused its market dominance by imposing unfair terms on users.

WhatsApp had challenged the CCI’s ban, warning it could have been forced to roll back certain features if the restriction remained. Meta, in turn, argued that the watchdog lacked the technical expertise to assess the implications of its decision.

The dispute dates back to 2021, when changes to WhatsApp’s privacy policy sparked widespread backlash in India. Regulators accused the company of pressuring users to accept new data-sharing terms or risk losing access to the platform.

A Meta spokesperson said the company is reviewing the tribunal’s written order and reiterated that the 2021 privacy update “did not change the privacy of people’s personal messages, which remain end-to-end encrypted.”

India is Meta’s largest market globally, with hundreds of millions of users across WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram — making the ruling a critical development for the company’s operations in the country.

Meta to Use AI Chat Data to Personalize Content and Ads Starting December

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Meta Platforms announced that beginning December 16, the company will start using users’ interactions with its generative AI tools to personalize both content and advertising across its major apps, including Facebook and Instagram.

The change — which will roll out globally except in the UK, the European Union, and South Korea — will apply to anyone who uses Meta AI, the company’s generative chatbot available via text or voice. Starting October 7, Meta will notify users of the update. However, there will be no option to opt out of this data integration.

AI INTERACTIONS TO SHAPE RECOMMENDATIONS

Meta said that user conversations with its AI — whether discussing travel, sports, or hobbies — will become an additional data signal alongside likes, follows, and other activity to help refine content recommendations and ad targeting.

For example, a user chatting with Meta AI about hiking might later see hiking-related groups, friends’ outdoor posts, or ads for hiking gear.
“People’s interactions simply are going to be another piece of the input that will inform the personalization of feeds and ads,” said Christy Harris, Meta’s privacy policy manager.

The company clarified that AI interactions involving sensitive topics — such as religion, sexuality, health, political affiliation, or ethnicity — will not be used for advertising purposes.

A MASSIVE PERSONALIZATION PUSH

The update is part of Meta’s broader strategy to make its AI ecosystem deeply integrated across all its apps. According to the company, Meta AI now has over 1 billion monthly active users, marking one of the fastest-growing AI deployments worldwide.

At the company’s annual shareholder meeting, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the goal for 2025 is to make Meta AI the leading personal assistant, emphasizing personalization, natural voice interactions, and entertainment.

The integration comes amid a new phase of AI monetization among tech giants. Both Google and Amazon are already leveraging AI to boost cloud revenues, but Meta’s move is unique for its cross-platform scale and its decision to blend AI chat data with social and ad algorithms.

By combining behavioral, conversational, and contextual signals, Meta aims to offer advertisers more effective targeting while keeping users more engaged through hyper-personalized recommendations.

OpenAI Launches “Sora” — an AI Video App That Can Generate Clips from Copyrighted Material

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OpenAI has unveiled Sora, a new AI-powered video creation app that allows users to generate and share short videos — including those derived from copyrighted content — directly to a built-in social media-style feed. The app, which represents OpenAI’s most ambitious push yet into generative video, is expected to raise new tensions across the entertainment industry.

According to the company, copyright holders such as movie and television studios must actively opt out if they do not wish to have their content appear in the app’s video feed. OpenAI described this as a continuation of its previous opt-out policy used for AI image generation, where creators must explicitly request the exclusion of their work from model training or public feeds.

The move is already sparking debate in Hollywood. People familiar with the matter said that Disney has opted out, and other major studios are currently in talks with OpenAI over the implications of Sora’s copyright framework.

Earlier this year, OpenAI urged the Trump administration to formally classify the use of copyrighted material for AI training as “fair use” under U.S. law — a position it argued was essential for national competitiveness and security, warning that U.S. AI firms could fall behind Chinese rivals without legal clarity.

Beyond copyright issues, OpenAI said Sora includes robust safeguards to prevent the misuse of personal likenesses and public figures. Users cannot generate videos of other people unless those individuals upload an AI “liveness check” — a verification process requiring users to move their heads and recite random numbers — to confirm consent.

Sora videos can be up to 10 seconds long and feature a new “Cameo” function, allowing users to create lifelike digital doubles of themselves and insert them into AI-generated scenes. The company says these videos are intended for creative experimentation and entertainment, with built-in transparency markers indicating AI generation.

Market analysts view the Sora app as a direct challenge to existing short-video giants such as TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak noted that the platform’s combination of AI creativity and social-sharing features positions OpenAI “in the business of competing for attention and reshaping user behavior.”

As Hollywood, regulators, and AI companies continue to clash over intellectual property and deepfake laws, Sora’s launch could set a major precedent for how AI-generated audiovisual content will be treated under future copyright and media frameworks.