Paytm takes Snapdeal to court over data theft

Paytm, the online payments and commerce platform, has filed a lawsuit against Unicommerce onwed by Snapdeal for accessing confidential business data on Paytm’s commerce platform via the sellers on this platform.
Paytm has also alleged that Unicommerce, which was acquired by Snapdeal last year, is using Paytm’s logo and name without any authorization. The hearing is expected to take place on Thursday.
Just like Snapdeal and Paytm, Ola and Uber have also been facing tensions in the highly competitive consumer internet space. About a month ago, cab aggregator Uber had dragged rival Ola to court alleging that the latter was involved in false bookings and creating fake rider accounts on the former’s platform.
Paytm and Snapdeal are rivals in two key business areas – payments and commerce marketplace. Snapdeal started as a marketplace and then acquired Freecharge for a play in the payments business. Paytm, backed by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, started as a digital payments platform and later entered the marketplace business.
Marketplace players connect merchants to consumers through a digital platform. The information and data flowing through the platform is valuable and companies want to keep it private.