Italy Orders Meta To Open WhatsApp To Rival AI Chatbots Amid Antritrust Probe

Meta has reportedly called the order ‘fundamentally flawed’ and said it plans to appeal.

• AGCM says Meta’s conduct might harm competition. The order seeks to secure access to WhatsApp for the tech company’s AI competitors.
• The decision stems from an investigation into the integration of Meta’s AI service into WhatsApp, which remains underway.
• Meta has warned that supporting rival chatbots could strain its systems.

The Italian competition authority has ordered WhatsApp owner Meta Platforms to suspend a policy that excludes rival artificial-intelligence chatbots from the messaging platform, as the competition watchdog investigates the U.S. tech giant over misuse of its dominant position by integrating its AI into WhatsApp.  

The authority, Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato, known as AGCM, said in a statement on Wednesday that the decision comes from an ongoing investigation into the integration of Meta’s AI service into WhatsApp.

The AGCM said that Meta’s conduct might harm competition, and that its order seeks to secure access to WhatsApp for the tech company’s AI competitors while the probe continues. However, it did not impose any fines related to the investigation on Meta.

A spokesperson for Meta reportedly called the decision "fundamentally flawed," and said the emergence of AI chatbots "put a strain on our systems that they were not designed to support,” according to a report from Reuters. Meta said it will appeal the decision. 
In July, the AGCM opened an investigation into Meta over suspected abuse of dominant position related to WhatsApp. It then widened its probe into the platform in November by bringing its updated terms into investigation.

Crackdown On U.S. Tech Giants

European regulators are cracking down on major U.S. tech platforms like Google, Meta, Apple, Microsoft, X, among others. There are investigations underway, with the latest by the European Commission, which has opened an antitrust probe to determine whether Google was breaching EU competition rules in its use of online content from web publishers and YouTube for AI purposes.

Earlier this week, the Italian competition authority fined Apple over €98 million for abuse of its dominant position. The EU’s tech regulators fined Elon Musk’s social media firm X €120 million for breaching online content rules.

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