{"id":413070,"date":"2026-05-05T15:37:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T15:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/413070\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T15:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T15:37:12","slug":"meta-seeks-to-fend-off-eu-order-to-allow-rival-ai-chatbots-on-whatsapp-at-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/413070\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta seeks to fend off EU order to allow rival AI chatbots on WhatsApp at hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">By Foo Yun Chee<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">BRUSSELS, May 5 (Reuters) &#8211; Meta Platforms on Tuesday sought to stave off an imminent EU order to allow rival AI chatbots free access to its social \u200cmessaging site WhatsApp, as it presented its arguments to EU antitrust officials.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Meta&#8217;s request for \u200cTuesday&#8217;s closed hearing came after the European Commission last month sent the tech giant an additional charge sheet outlining its plan. \u200bIt is part of an interim measure while the EU enforcer continues its investigation into whether the company abuses its market power, which could result in a hefty fine. The Commission will decide in coming months whether to issue the order.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Meta introduced a policy on January 15 allowing only its Meta AI assistant \u200con WhatsApp, before subsequently amending it \u2060in March, saying rivals could now use the social messaging app for a fee.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">That triggered the second charge from EU regulators on top of the first charge \u2060in February related to potential temporary measures to stop Meta from blocking AI rivals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Meta lawyer Tim Lamb and other lawyers were at the hearing in Brussels while executives in the United States were expected to follow \u200bthe four \u200bhour-long proceeding online.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Meta reiterated its previous comments, saying the \u200bEU antitrust watchdog was using its power \u200cto enable some of the largest companies in the world to use the paid-for WhatsApp Business product for free.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">&#8220;This means that a small bakery in France paying to use the service to take croissant orders will be picking up the tab for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/organizations\/openai\/\" data-ylk=\"slk:OpenAI;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;OpenAI&quot;}\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">OpenAI<\/a>. Small European businesses shouldn&#8217;t foot OpenAI&#8217;s bill,&#8221; a Meta spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">The Commission&#8217;s Deputy Director-General for Antitrust Linsey McCallum and her director Carlota Reyners Fontana declined \u200cto comment as they headed into the hearing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">The Interaction Company \u200bof California, developer of the Poke.com AI assistant and a \u200bcomplainant in the case, also took part.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">&#8220;Meta \u200bis seeking to monopolize the use of WhatsApp for AI services by reserving \u200cit to its own offerings and excluding competitors \u200blike us,&#8221; Felix Schlegel, \u200bco-founder and CTO of The Interaction Company of California, said ahead of the hearing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">&#8220;We welcome the Commission&#8217;s action and its consideration of interim measures. At the hearing, we will make clear \u200bthat these measures are necessary and \u200cshould be adopted without delay,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">OpenAI and French AI startup Simone were listed \u200bas participants in the hearing, according to a person with direct knowledge of the \u200bmatter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Susan Fenton)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS, May 5 (Reuters) &#8211; Meta Platforms on Tuesday sought to stave off an&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,212386,212387,363,364,30536,33438,111,139,69,145,83499,19607],"class_list":["post-413070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-ai-chatbots-free","tag-antitrust-officials","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-european-commission","tag-meta-platforms","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology","tag-the-commission","tag-whatsapp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}