EU Orders Meta to Immediately Halt WhatsApp Policies Blocking Rival AI Firms

Brussels wields a rare emergency lever

The European Commission on June 9 ordered Meta to restore free access to WhatsApp for competing artificial intelligence assistants within five working days, invoking emergency interim powers it has used only once before in more than two decades.politico EU competition chief Teresa Ribera framed the move in stark terms: "In rapidly evolving markets, competition can be lost long before a final decision is adopted."eunews The order covers all services across the European Economic Area and stays in place until the Commission completes its antitrust investigation, which has no set deadline.luxtimes

The decision escalates a conflict that began in October 2025, when Meta updated its WhatsApp Business Solution Terms to block third-party general-purpose AI assistants — services including OpenAI's ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity — from the platform.ppc The ban took full effect in January 2026, cutting those tools off from hundreds of millions of WhatsApp users in Europe.ppc

A fee that Brussels says is still a ban

Meta partially reversed course in March 2026, lifting the outright prohibition but introducing per-message fees for third-party AI providers ranging from roughly €0.05 to €0.13.techbuzz Brussels was unmoved. In a supplementary statement of objections issued in April, the Commission found that the pricing model produced "the same effect of excluding third-party AI assistants from WhatsApp" as the original ban.ppc The theory of harm is straightforward: under Article 102 of the EU Treaty, a dominant company cannot use economic levers to achieve exclusion it could not achieve by legal rule.ppc

The AI assistant market the Commission is trying to protect is growing quickly — estimated at roughly $4.4 billion in 2024 and projected to reach $11.7 billion in 2026.ppc WhatsApp, with approximately three billion users globally, is one of the most important consumer access points in the world, and regulators argued that locking rivals out during this formative period would cause irreversible competitive harm.eunews

Meta pushes back, and Washington watches

Meta rejected the order outright. "The European Commission has decided that OpenAI and some of the largest companies in the world can use the paid-for WhatsApp Business product for free," a company spokesperson said, calling it "regulatory overreach subsidised by the many European companies that pay."politico The company said it would appeal.

The case adds to a deepening rift between Meta and Brussels. The company is already appealing a €200 million fine imposed last year for separate Digital Markets Act violations, and it faces a €798 million penalty over Facebook Marketplace.luxtimes The broader EU–US regulatory tension has drawn in the White House: President Donald Trump has threatened tariffs and export restrictions in retaliation for European enforcement actions against American tech firms.cnbc Italy folded its own parallel WhatsApp probe into the EU investigation a day before Tuesday's order, and Brazil forced Meta to reopen access there in March.politico Non-compliance with the interim order could trigger fines of up to 10 percent of Meta's global annual revenue.luxtimes