Brazil’s competition watchdog has ordered WhatsApp to put on hold its policy barring third-party AI companies from using its business API to offer chatbots in the app. The agency has also launched an investigation against the company to determine whether the policy is anti-competitive.
“According to the investigations, there is potential anti-competitive behavior of an exclusive nature resulting from the application of the New WhatsApp Terms (“WhatsApp Business Solution Terms”) imposed by Meta to regulate the access and offer, by providers of artificial intelligence tools, of its technologies to WhatsApp users”, Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Economica (CADE) he said.
CADE said it will investigate whether Meta’s terms are exclusive to competitors and unduly favor Meta AI, the company’s chatbot offered on WhatsApp.
Meta last October changed the terms of use for the WhatsApp Business API to prohibit third-party AI companies from offering their chatbots in the app. Companies like OpenAIPerplexity and Microsoft soon after noted that after the policy takes effect on January 15, their chatbots will no longer be offered on WhatsApp. Specifically, Meta’s policy does not prevent businesses from offering their own chatbots, AI or otherwise, within WhatsApp to their customers.
The CADE investigation comes after the European Union launched its own antitrust investigation into the new policy, as did Italy. If the EU finds Meta in violation of its antitrust rules, it could be fined up to 10% of its global revenue.
Meta has informed AI providers that they can continue to offer their AI chatbots to users in Italy even after the new rules take effect on January 15, according to a notice to developers seen by TechCrunch. The company could take a similar decision in Brazil at the behest of CADE.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular hours.
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The company has consistently argued that AI chatbots strain its systems designed for different uses of its business API. Meta has said in the past that people who want to use different chatbots can do so outside of WhatsApp.
“The purpose of the WhatsApp Business API is to help businesses provide customer support and send related updates. Our focus is on supporting the tens of thousands of businesses that create these experiences on WhatsApp,” a Meta spokesperson said when the company changed the terms in October.
