ANTITRUST | The ICA started an investigation on alleged Meta’s tying conduct

On 22 July 2025, the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) opened an investigation into certain entities within the META Group (META), hypothesizing a possible abuse of dominant position in the market for AI Chatbot or AI Assistant services under Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The conduct under investigation consisted of META allegedly tying the provision of its WhatsApp instant messaging service to its AI service by pre-installing the latter on WhatsApp. According to the ICA’s preliminary view, such conduct might generate exclusionary effects to the detriment of other operators offering AI services. Indeed, as assumed by the authority, users could access, on WhatsApp, only the META’s AI service immediately and more easily than what was required of them to access similar services from other operators offering such service. As the Authority had assumed, this shift in dynamics pulled META’s customer base away from the app-based communication services market, in which META would have been dominant, and towards the emerging market for AI chatbot or assistant services.

Newsletter n. 110 – August/September 2025