Meta Platforms Inc. is facing a possible interim European Union ban on WhatsApp policies that regulators say may block rival Artificial Intelligence firms from operating on the messaging platform. The dispute centers on business service rules that complainants argue unfairly limit competing providers from offering their services through WhatsApp.
In a supplementary statement of objections, the European Commission said on Wednesday it intends to “impose interim measures to prevent these policy changes from causing serious and irreparable harm on the market, subject to Meta’s reply and rights of defence.” The commission’s move signals that Brussels sees the matter as urgent enough to consider temporary restrictions before reaching a final decision in the wider antitrust investigation.
Meta rejected the commission’s position and argued that the proposed intervention would distort competition in the opposite direction. A company spokesperson said the European Commission is trying to use regulatory powers to let some of the world’s largest companies use the paid-for WhatsApp Business product for free. Meta framed the issue as one that would shift costs onto smaller businesses, saying a small bakery in France paying to use the service to take croissant orders would effectively be subsidizing OpenAI.
Under EU rules, competition regulators can order companies to temporarily stop suspect business practices, but these demands can be challenged in the bloc’s courts in Luxembourg. Eventual fines for breaching the EU antitrust rulebook can be as high as 10% of global annual revenue, although they rarely reach that level, especially if alleged wrongdoing is short-lived.
Italian regulators were the first to examine the alleged competitive distortions tied to WhatsApp’s Artificial Intelligence policies, focusing on a possible abuse of a dominant market position in chatbot services. The Italian antitrust agency had already said it was working with European Union counterparts on the matter. The Brussels-based commission said Wednesday it had expanded its probe to cover Italy too, bringing that part of the case into the broader European investigation after Rome had initially handled it separately.
