Report from Politico
In Brief – The European Commission has announced an antitrust investigation into whether Meta is unfairly blocking chatbot providers from using its WhatsApp messaging app. In October, WhatsApp changed its business API policy to ban general-purpose AI chatbots, such as from Chat-GPT and Perplexity, from communicating with customers using a WhatsApp tool called the “WhatsApp Business Solution” starting January 15. The Commission will probe whether the policy breaches EU rules on abuse of dominance by blocking rival AI providers from reaching their customers through WhatsApp, whilst its own AI service would remain accessible to platform users. EU competition chief Teresa Ribeira said of WhatsApp’s AI chatbot policy, “We must ensure European citizens and businesses can benefit fully of this technological revolution and act to prevent dominant digital incumbents from abusing their power to crowd out innovative competitors.” A WhatsApp spokesperson dismissed the Commission’s claims as “baseless,” saying that the emergence of AI chatbots using their Business API was putting strain on their systems that they were not designed to support, and added that the AI space is “highly competitive.”
Context – Although WhatsApp is one of the 23 “Core Platform Services” operated by the digital giants designated as “Gatekeepers” and regulated by the Digital Markets Act, the Commission probe is not being pursued under the DMA. It is a traditional antitrust investigation. Chatbot market shares in Europe for November are pretty striking, with Chat-GPT at 83%, followed by Perplexity at 7.8% and Microsoft at 5.5%. In July, Italy’s antitrust authority launched an investigation into Meta’s March move to add the Meta AI chatbot to WhatsApp’s interface, contending that it might harm chatbot competitors by “forcing” WhatsApp users to accept the availability of the Meta chatbot rather than win them “through merit-based competition”. A Meta spokesperson responded that, “Offering free access to our AI features in WhatsApp gives millions of Italians the choice to use AI in a place they already know, trust and understand.”