Blocking rival AI chatbots from WhatsApp 'may cause serious and irreparable harm to competition' Italian regulators warned
Lionel BONAVENTUREThe EU said Thursday it has opened an antitrust probe to determine if the way Meta is rolling out AI features in WhatsApp breaches the bloc's competition rules.
In announcing the probe, the European Commission said it was concerned that a newly-announced Meta "policy may prevent third party AI providers from offering their services through WhatsApp."
The move against the US giant marks the latest move by the 27-nation EU to rein in Big Tech, in the face of strong pushback by the administration of US President Donald Trump.
It falls under the bloc's antitrust rules rather than its newly-reinforced digital laws, which Trump has accused of unfairly targeting American firms -- threatening retaliation.
EU competition chief Teresa Ribera said the bloc must "act to prevent dominant digital incumbents from abusing their power to crowd out innovative competitors."
"This is why we are investigating if Meta's new policy might be illegal under competition rules, and whether we should act quickly to prevent any possible irreparable harm to competition in the AI space," Ribera said in a statement.
The EU says that a new Meta policy announced in October will restrict the ability of AI providers to use a tool in the business version of WhatsApp to communicate with customers.
"As a result of the new policy, competing AI providers may be blocked from reaching their customers through WhatsApp," the commission statement said.
"On the other hand, Meta's own AI service 'Meta AI' would remain accessible to users on the platform."
The EU probe covers the European Economic Area, made up of the bloc's 27 states, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway -- with the exception of Italy, which opened a separate investigation into Meta in July.
The Italian antitrust body has said that by merging Meta AI with WhatsApp, the US giant may be imposing the use of its AI services on users and channelling its customer base into the emerging market.
ec/rl
Originally published on doc.afp.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.
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