By Edith Hancock
The European Union sent a statement of objections to Meta Platforms on Monday as part of its investigation into how the tech giant treats rival artificial-intelligence chatbots on its WhatsApp messaging service.
The European Commission, the bloc's executive arm, said it intends to impose interim measures on Meta after it changed its policies to prevent competing chatbots from tapping into a tool for businesses to communicate with customers via WhatsApp.
EU officials said they believe that Meta could be abusing its dominant position in messaging apps by refusing other businesses access to WhatsApp. The officials said they see WhatsApp as a key gateway for AI assistants to reach users.
A Meta spokesperson said that the commission has wrongly assumed that WhatsApp's business programming interface is a key distribution channel for chatbots. "There are many AI options and people can use them from app stores, operating systems, devices, websites and industry partnerships," the spokesperson said.
Meta in October said it would impose a new policy that effectively bans developers of rival chatbots like ChatGPT from using Whatsapp's business interface. The EU started investigating the policy in December, with competition commissioner Teresa Ribera saying at the time that officials were considering imposing interim measures--an effective injunction on business practices--on the company while its probe is active.
The commission said there was an "urgent need" to apply protective measures. "Meta's conduct risks raising barriers to entry and expansion, and irreparably marginalizing smaller competitors on the market for general-purpose AI assistants," the regulators said in a statement.
The EU executive's statement of objections covers the whole bloc except for Italy, where the country's antitrust regulators are carrying out their own WhatsApp AI investigation. Italy's competition regulator already ordered Meta to keep its WhatsApp messaging platform open to rival chatbots in December as part of that probe.
Write to Edith Hancock at edith.hancock@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
By Edith Hancock
The European Union sent a statement of objections to Meta Platforms on Monday as part of its investigation into how the tech giant treats rival artificial-intelligence chatbots on its WhatsApp messaging service.
The European Commission, the bloc's executive arm, said it intends to impose interim measures on Meta after it changed its policies to prevent competing chatbots from tapping into a tool for businesses to communicate with customers via WhatsApp. The company rolled out its policy in January this year.
EU officials said they believe that Meta could be abusing its dominant position in messaging apps by refusing other businesses access to WhatsApp. The officials said they see WhatsApp as a key gateway for AI assistants to reach users. A spokesperson for the EU executive said it could ask Meta to reverse its policy and give rival chatbots access to users on the messaging app until the end of its investigation.
Meta now has a chance to formally respond to the EU watchdog's objections and injunction proposal, and can request a hearing before officials take a decision.
A Meta spokesperson said that the commission has wrongly assumed that WhatsApp's business programming interface is a key distribution channel for chatbots. "There are many AI options and people can use them from app stores, operating systems, devices, websites and industry partnerships," the spokesperson said.
Meta in October said it would impose a new policy that effectively bans developers of rival chatbots like ChatGPT from using WhatsApp's business interface. The EU started investigating the policy in December, with competition commissioner Teresa Ribera saying at the time that officials were considering imposing interim measures--an effective injunction on business practices--on the company while its probe is active.
The commission said there was an "urgent need" to apply protective measures. "Meta's conduct risks raising barriers to entry and expansion, and irreparably marginalizing smaller competitors on the market for general-purpose AI assistants," the regulators said in a statement.
It is the latest step the EU has taken to enforce its rules against the world's largest technology companies despite facing pushback from U.S. President Trump's administration.
The EU executive's statement of objections covers the whole bloc except for Italy, where the country's antitrust regulators are carrying out their own WhatsApp AI investigation. Italy's competition regulator ordered Meta in December to keep its WhatsApp messaging platform open to rival chatbots as part of that probe. Meta has since said it would start to charge AI providers to send messages over WhatsApp in countries where that access has been legally required by regulators.
Judges in Brazil have suspended an interim injunction the country's antitrust regulator imposed on Meta during its own investigation into WhatsApp's AI policy.
Write to Edith Hancock at edith.hancock@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 09, 2026 08:59 ET (13:59 GMT)
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