Europe regulators to Mark Zuckerberg's Meta: Stop from blocking rival AI chatbots from WhatsApp or…

European Union (EU) antitrust regulators have issued a warning to Facebook-parent company Meta, threatening it with imposing interim measures for blocking rival artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots and services on WhatsApp. According to a report by news agency Reuters, the European Commission announced on Monday (February 9) that it has sent a “statement of objections” to the company, indicating an escalation in its investigation into suspected abuses of market dominance.

EU regulators say they are protecting ‘vibrant field’

With this investigation, EU is aiming to prevent “serious and irreparable harm” to the AI industry in Europe. If Meta does not comply, the EU intends to impose emergency interim measures to force the company to reopen its messaging platform to third-party developers during the investigation, which started in December last year.“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 said 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,” Ribera added.

Meta responds: ‘No reason for the EU to intervene’

Meta has pushed back against the Commission’s findings, arguing that the intervention is unnecessary given the abundance of AI choices available to consumers. In an emailed statement to Reuters, a Meta spokesperson argued that users can access AI through app stores, websites, and various operating systems.

“There are many AI options and people can use them from app stores, operating systems, devices, websites and industry partnerships. The Commission's logic incorrectly assumes the WhatsApp Business API (software) is a key distribution channel for these chatbots," a Meta spokesperson said in the email.Recently, a Brazilian court recently suspended a similar interim measure against the company.