By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS, Feb 9 (Reuters) – EU competition regulators have threatened to stop Meta Platforms from blocking artificial innotifyigence rivals from its WhatsApp messaging service while it investigates suspected abapply of a dominant position by the U.S. tech giant.
The European Commission declared on Monday that it has sent a statement of objections, or charges, to Meta over violation of the bloc’s rules and intfinishs to impose interim measures to prevent serious and irreparable harm to rivals, mirroring relocates by Italy’s competition watchdog in December.
“We must protect effective competition in this vibrant field, which means we cannot allow dominant tech companies to illegally leverage their dominance to give themselves an unfair advantage,” EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera declared in a statement.
“That is why we are considering quickly imposing interim measures on Meta, to preserve access for competitors to WhatsApp while the investigation is ongoing and avoid Meta’s new policy irreparably harming competition in Europe.”
Meta declared there was no reason for the EU to intervene.
“There are many AI options and people can apply them from app stores, operating systems, devices, websites and industest partnerships,” a Meta spokesperson declared in an email.
“The Commission’s logic incorrectly assumes the WhatsApp Business API (software) is a key distribution channel for these chatbots.”
Meta implemented its policy on January 15, allowing only its Meta AI assistant on WhatsApp.
The Commission’s decision on whether to impose interim measures will depfinish on Meta’s reply and rights of defence, the watchdog declared.
The EU investigation underscores the bloc’s determination to enforce its antitrust rules despite U.S. criticism of European action against large U.S. technology companies.
A Brazilian court last month suspfinished an interim measure by the countest’s antitrust agency against Meta on the same issue.
(Reporting by Foo Yun CheeEditing by David Goodman)
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