Brussels asks Meta to allow the use of alternative artificial intelligence services in WhatsApp

Brussels.- The European Commission asked the US company Meta this Wednesday not to charge a fee to competitors who want to offer their artificial intelligence services in the WhatsApp messaging application and indicated that if the technology company does not change its policy voluntarily, it will force it to do so. With this request, the Community Executive takes another step in the antitrust investigation it opened against Meta last December, after the company founded by Mark Zuckerberg announced in October that it would only allow the use of its own tool of AI in WhatsApp. Brussels concluded in February that this practice violated free competition and asked it to reverse its decision, and the company then chose to allow competitors to enter, but only after forcing them to pay a fee. “This policy is essentially equivalent to the previous ban,” the Commission indicated today in a statement, so it has asked Meta to remove the fee voluntarily or it will formally oblige it to do so.

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“Replacing the legal ban with price fixing with a similar effect does not alter our preliminary opinion that Meta’s conduct appears to constitute an abuse of its dominant position, which could seriously harm competition in the artificial intelligence assistant market,” added the Vice President, in charge of Competition policy, Teresa Ribera. The tech company now has the opportunity to rebut the arguments of the European Commission and if it fails to do so or Brussels is not satisfied with the proposed solution, it may impose the measure preventively until the Community Executive concludes the investigation.