EU antitrust regulators issued a temporary order on Tuesday requiring U.S. technology giant Meta Platforms to open free WhatsApp access to rival artificial intelligence chatbots during an investigation into whether the company abused its market dominance by blocking competitors.
This is the first time in 17 years that the European Commission has imposed antitrust "temporary measures" on companies. Previously, California-based The Interaction Company (which developed the Poke.com AI assistant), French start-up Agentik, and a Spanish competitor filed complaints with the European Commission, accusing Meta of using its position in the messaging service field to squeeze out rivals.
Following relevant complaints, the European Commission, as the EU's competition law enforcement agency, launched a formal antitrust investigation into Meta in December last year, and issued a statement of objections to the company in February this year, accusing it of allegedly violating EU antitrust rules. EU competition chief Teresa Rivera said in a statement that in rapidly evolving markets, "competition can be stifled long before a final decision is taken." She pointed out that this temporary measure is intended to maintain competition in the emerging AI assistant market and help artificial intelligence companies continue to innovate, expand and realize their full potential by retaining WhatsApp as a "key entry point to reach European consumers".
Meta strongly criticized the European Commission's decision. The European Commission's decision means that OpenAI and "some of the world's largest companies" will be able to use WhatsApp's paid enterprise service product (WhatsApp Business) for free, the company said in an emailed statement. Meta called the decision "a regulatory overreach that imposes costs on the many European businesses that pay to use the service" and said it would appeal.
The focus of the incident is Meta's access policy to the WhatsApp Enterprise application programming interface (API). This interface allows companies to connect their own systems with WhatsApp for automated communication and services with customers. In October last year, Meta banned competing AI services from accessing the WhatsApp Business API, but exempted its own AI assistant "Meta AI". In March this year, Meta allowed competitors to provide services through the interface again, but they had to pay a fee. This move was immediately opposed by the European Commission.
According to the temporary order issued by the EU this time, Meta must restore competitors' access to the WhatsApp Business API within five working days under the same terms and conditions as before October last year, and no additional fees may be charged. In the final ruling, if Meta is found to have violated EU antitrust regulations, Meta may face a fine of up to 10% of its global annual turnover.
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The EU initially determined that Meta violated antitrust rules and requested that third-party AI assistants be restored to access WhatsApp