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The European Commission’s ‘preliminary view’ is that Meta is stifling competition by blocking competitors’ AI assistants from WhatsApp
The European Commission has sent a Statement of Objections to Meta, presenting its preliminary view that Meta breached EU antitrust rules by excluding third party AI assistants from accessing and interacting with users on WhatsApp.
The statement says that Meta is likely to be abusing its dominant position in the consumer communication application market, potentially stifling future competition.
Meta made the policy changes to effectively ban third-party AI assistants from WhatsApp in October last year. The Commission began investigating the matter in December the same year.
“Artificial intelligence is bringing incredible innovations to consumers, and one of these is the emerging market of AI assistants. We must protect effective competition in this vibrant field, which means we cannot allow dominant tech companies to illegally leverage their dominance to give themselves an unfair advantage,” said EU Commissioner for Competition and Executive Vice-President for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition, Teresa Ribera, in a statement.
In addition, the EU is considering implementing interim measures to ensure these AI assistants can retain access to WhatsApp while the investigation is ongoing.
“AI markets are developing at rapid pace, so we also need to be swift in our action. That is why we are considering quickly imposing interim measures on Meta, to preserve access for competitors to WhatsApp while the investigation is ongoing, and avoid Meta’s new policy irreparably harming competition in Europe,” Ribera explained.
Meta rejects the assertion that their policy is anticompetitive.
“The facts are that there is no reason for the EU to intervene in the WhatsApp Business API,” a Meta spokesperson said.
“There are many AI options and people can use them from app stores, operating systems, devices, websites, and industry partnerships. The Commission’s logic incorrectly assumes the WhatsApp Business API is a key distribution channel for these chatbots,” the company added.
Meta has a fractious history with EU regulations, with a long history of clashing with the bloc’s stringent data privacy, competition, and artificial intelligence laws.
In the past three years, the EU has fine Meta over €2 billion for various antitrust and GDPR infractions.
It is worth noting, however, that not every EU decision has gone against the tech giant. Indeed, this week a ruling from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has given the green light for WhatsApp to continue contesting a €225 million fine delivered by the Irish data regulator back in 2021.
“The Court refers the case back to the General Court for it to rule on the merits, including on whether WhatsApp infringed the relevant provisions of the GDPR,” the ECJ said in a statement.
Investigations into WhatsApp’s Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance first began in 2018. Three years later, in 2021 the Irish Data Protection Commission fined WhatsApp €225 million for failing to inform its users how their data would be shared with its parent company, Meta (then Facebook).
WhatsApp immediately challenged the decision, which has seen them embroiled in a legal tussle for the past five years.
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