By Satyabrat Borah
Messaging power shapes the way modern societies speak, argue, trade and even fall silent. What once required physical presence or slow correspondence now happens instantly across screens carried in pockets. Among all digital platforms, messaging services hold a special place because they feel private even when they operate at massive scale. WhatsApp is not just a tool for casual conversation. It is the primary communication infrastructure for millions of families, small businesses, journalists, political workers and community groups. When such a platform changes how it collects, shares or uses data, the consequences extend far beyond terms and conditions. They touch the foundations of a healthy digital marketplace and a democratic public sphere.
WhatsApp grew rapidly because it promised simplicity and trust. It positioned itself as an alternative to noisy social networks, focusing on personal communication without ads and with strong encryption. For many users, especially in countries like India, WhatsApp became synonymous with the internet itself. Vegetable sellers take orders on it, doctors share reports, teachers send homework, and neighbourhoods organise help through it. This deep integration into daily life gives WhatsApp immense power, not just as a company but as an intermediary of social and economic relations. Power of this scale demands scrutiny, especially when policies about data sharing evolve in ways that users struggle to fully understand or meaningfully consent to.
A healthy digital marketplace depends on fairness, transparency and genuine choice. Users should know what they are giving in exchange for convenience. Businesses should compete on quality rather than on access to personal data. Innovation should not come at the cost of surveillance. When WhatsApp updates its data sharing policies, particularly in relation to its parent company Meta, these principles are put to the test. The concern is not merely whether data is shared, but how, why and with what long term implications.
The language of digital policy often hides reality behind legal complexity. Many users click agree because refusing means social exclusion. When your family group, workplace updates and customer contacts all exist on one platform, opting out is not a real option. Consent under such conditions becomes symbolic rather than meaningful. A healthy marketplace cannot be built on forced consent. Scrutiny is necessary to ask whether users are being cornered into accepting arrangements they would otherwise question.
Data is the currency of the digital economy. Messaging data is particularly sensitive because it reveals relationships, habits and patterns of life even when messages themselves are encrypted. Metadata such as who communicates with whom, how often and at what times can paint an intimate portrait of a person. When such data flows between companies within a corporate ecosystem, it strengthens market dominance. It allows targeted advertising, behavioural prediction and commercial advantage that smaller competitors cannot match. This tilts the marketplace away from openness and towards concentration of power.
Supporters of expanded data sharing often argue that it improves services and enables integration. They speak of better business tools, smoother payments and personalised experiences. These benefits may exist, but they must be weighed against risks that are harder to reverse. Once data ecosystems are merged, separation becomes almost impossible. Users may gain convenience today but lose autonomy tomorrow. The question regulators and citizens must ask is not only what is promised, but what becomes possible in the future once data walls are lowered.
Trust is the invisible infrastructure of digital life. WhatsApp built trust by emphasising privacy and security. Any change that appears to dilute this commitment risks eroding user confidence, even if technical encryption remains intact. Trust is not only about whether messages are read by outsiders. It is about whether users feel watched, profiled or nudged in unseen ways. A platform that feels intrusive changes how people speak. They self censor, avoid sensitive topics or retreat into silence. This has social costs that cannot be measured in revenue graphs.
A healthy digital marketplace also depends on competition. When a messaging platform with near universal reach shares data within a larger corporate network, it creates barriers for new entrants. Startups cannot easily compete with companies that already possess vast behavioural datasets. This stifles innovation and locks users into dominant ecosystems. Regulators must examine whether data sharing policies function as tools of market consolidation rather than genuine service improvement.
The impact is particularly significant in developing economies. In many regions, WhatsApp acts as digital infrastructure without having been designed as such. Governments communicate through it, relief efforts depend on it, and informal economies rely on it. When a private corporation controls such a critical channel, its policies acquire public significance. Scrutiny is not hostility. It is recognition of responsibility. Platforms that function like public utilities must be held to higher standards of accountability.
Another dimension often overlooked is the asymmetry of understanding. Corporations employ teams of lawyers, engineers and policy experts. Users are individuals navigating complex documents in a second language, on small screens, under time pressure. This imbalance makes it essential for regulators to step in as representatives of the public interest. Without scrutiny, policy decisions are effectively made by default, shaped by corporate incentives rather than democratic debate.
Data sharing policies also intersect with issues of misinformation and political influence. Messaging platforms have been used to spread rumours, propaganda and coordinated campaigns. While encryption protects privacy, data sharing across platforms can enhance profiling and targeting capabilities. This raises concerns about micro targeted political messaging and manipulation. A healthy digital marketplace cannot ignore its impact on democratic processes.
Scrutiny does not mean banning innovation or rejecting technology. It means asking clear questions. What data is shared exactly. With whom. For what purpose. For how long. Can users opt out without losing core functionality. Are alternatives allowed to compete fairly. Are safeguards enforceable or merely promised. These questions require independent oversight, not just corporate assurances.
Courts and regulators in several countries have already recognised the need for such examination. Legal challenges and regulatory interventions signal that society is waking up to the reality that digital power must be balanced by public accountability. This is not anti business sentiment. It is pro citizen governance. Just as financial markets require regulation to prevent abuse, digital marketplaces require rules to protect users from exploitation.
The future of messaging should not be a choice between convenience and dignity. It should offer both. Technology can empower without extracting excessive control. But this requires conscious design choices guided by ethical frameworks, not just profit models. Scrutiny creates the pressure necessary for such choices to be made responsibly.
Users too have a role. Awareness is the first step towards agency. Public discussion, media scrutiny and civil society engagement ensure that data policies do not remain obscure technical matters. When people talk about privacy not as an abstract right but as a lived experience, policy debates gain urgency and relevance.
A healthy digital marketplace is not built overnight. It evolves through negotiation between innovation and restraint. Messaging platforms sit at the heart of this negotiation because they mediate human connection itself. WhatsApp’s data sharing policies therefore deserve careful and continuous scrutiny, not because the platform is uniquely malicious, but because its reach makes every policy decision consequential.
In the end, the question is simple but profound. Who controls the flow of communication in a digital society, and under what conditions. If messaging power is allowed to grow without oversight, the marketplace becomes a terrain of invisible influence rather than fair exchange. Scrutiny is the tool that keeps this power visible, contestable and accountable.
A society that values open communication must also value the protection of those communications from unchecked commercial exploitation. WhatsApp began as a promise of simple, secure connection. Preserving that spirit in an age of data driven business models requires more than trust. It requires rules, vigilance and an insistence that human relationships are not merely data points in a marketplace.
Only through thorough scrutiny can the digital marketplace remain healthy, competitive and humane. Without it, messaging power risks becoming another form of silent dominance, shaping lives without consent or accountability. The choice before us is not whether technology will advance, but whether it will do so in service of people rather than at their expense.
