"The Italian Competition Authority (AGCM) on Wednesday said it had found enough cause in its ongoing investigation into whether Meta was abusing its dominant position in the market to offer its Meta AI chatbot within WhatsApp to order the suspension of the policy. "Meta's conduct appears to constitute an abuse, since it may limit production, market access, or technical developments in the AI Chatbot services market, to the detriment of consumers," the Authority wrote. "Moreover, while the investigation is ongoing, Meta's conduct may cause serious and irreparable harm to competition in the affected market, undermining contestability.""
"Meta has argued that its API isn't designed to be a platform for the distribution of chatbots, and that people have more avenues beyond WhatsApp to use AI bots from other companies. The policy change, which goes into effect in January, would affect the availability of AI chatbots from the likes of OpenAI, Perplexity, and Poke on the app."
"The policy doesn't affect businesses that are using AI to serve customers on WhatsApp. For instance, a retailer running an AI-powered customer service bot won't be barred from using the API. Only AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude are prohibited from being distributed via the API."
Italy's competition regulator ordered Meta to suspend a WhatsApp API policy that bans companies from using WhatsApp business tools to distribute general-purpose AI chatbots. The AGCM found potential abuse of Meta's dominant position, saying the policy may limit production, market access, or technical development in the AI chatbot market and could cause serious, irreparable harm to competition. The ban, announced in October and effective in January, would affect providers such as OpenAI, Perplexity, and Poke, while permitting AI used for customer service. The European Commission has also opened an investigation into the policy.
Read at TechCrunch
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]