Italian regulators order to open WhatsApp to rival AI chatbots

An Italian watchdog has ordered Facebook parent company Meta Platforms to suspend a policy that excludes rival AI chatbot services from messaging WhatsApp.

According to reports, the social media giant risks distorting competition on the market for AI chatbots in Italy, prompting regulators to issue an interim order against the company.

Meta is already facing a probe by the EU for possible breach of the bloc’s competition rules after the social media company announced in October a policy that prohibited AI providers from using a tool allowing businesses to reach customers via WhatsApp when AI is the main service offered.

Meta’s conduct may threaten competition

The Italian Competition Authority, known as AGCM revealed on Wednesday that the order follows an investigation to assess the integration of Meta’s own services into WhatsApp. The investigation is still ongoing, according to the AGCM.

The authority expressed concerns that Meta’s behavior might threaten competition. As such, the interim order is meant to preserve access to the WhatsApp platform for the social media giant’s AI competitors as investigations into the matter continue.

Meta has previously indicated that it was liaising with the authority on the investigation, adding that the WhatsApp application programming interface was never designed to be used for AI chatbots. But the authority is positive that Meta’s conduct may pose a serious threat to competition with the social networking giant abusing its dominant position.

“Meta’s conduct appears to constitute an abuse, since it may limit production, market access or technical developments in the AI chatbot services market, to the detriment of consumers.”

AGCM.

Earlier this year, the AGCM launched an investigation to evaluate whether AI features that Meta had introduced on WhatsApp amounted to an abuse of a dominant position.

Last month, the authority widened the scope of the probe to include a change in WhatsApp’s business terms excluding general purpose AI chatbots from the platform, adding that the social media firm’s new rules could call for interim measures.

The AGCM also revealed on Wednesday that the conditions for adopting interim measures had been met. The authority also added that it was coordinating with the EU antitrust officials on the issue. Meta is already under EU probe over the matter, in one of the several antitrust cases against US tech giants, including Google and Apple.

As previously reported by the Cryptopolitan, Google was earlier this year slapped with a €2.95 billion fine in an ad case, in which the EU alleges the tech giant abused its dominant position. The case is considered one of Brussels’ biggest punishments.

During the same month, Meta was also fined €200 million for breaching obligations to give consumers the choice of service that uses less of their personal data.

Fines for breaking the EU’s antitrust rules can be as much as 10% of the company’s annual revenue. For this current case, there are reportedly no dates set for the antitrust investigation to close, but prior cases have run for years.

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