
Italy's antitrust authority, AKA the body the looks into monopoly abuses by companies, has reportedly launched an investigation into Meta. According to Reuters, the Italian authority is considering, "allegations the company abused its dominant position by installing its artificial intelligence tool on messaging service WhatsApp."
The key detail, it seems, is that Meta foisted its AI assistant onto WhatsApp users without their consent. "By pairing Meta AI with WhatsApp, Meta appears to be able to steer its user base into the new market not through merit-based competition, but by 'forcing' users to accept the availability of two distinct services, potentially harming competing services," the Italian antitrust authority said.