EU Continues Its Misguided Antitrust Policy in the Age of AI, Says ITIF

WASHINGTON—Following the European Commission’s decision to issue a Statement of Objections alleging that Meta violated EU competition law by limiting the access of third-party artificial intelligence (AI) assistants to its WhatsApp platform, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the leading think tank for science and technology policy, released the following statement from Joseph V. Coniglio, senior counsel and director of antitrust and innovation policy:

The EU’s latest antitrust attack undermines transatlantic leadership in AI. Rather than learning from the mistakes of decades of competition policy that protects competitors instead of consumers, the Commission continues to double down with this ill-founded and precautionary abuse of dominance action in a highly dynamic AI space.

The notion that Meta is dominant in a so-called “consumer communications applications” market is not at all credible. Apple, Google, and several other players offer European consumers the very same types of messaging services.

Once again, the Commission is going after America’s leading technology firms for behavior that would be lawful in the United States. Meta is not alleged to be protecting its supposed dominance in messaging, but rather to be seeking a purported advantage in the separate AI assistant market—a leveraging claim that would not be cognizable under the Sherman Act.

What’s more, Meta is highly unlikely to have acted anticompetitively even under the EU’s own legal standards. Access to WhatsApp is not indispensable for rival AI assistants to compete, and competition will continue to flourish in the AI assistant market, which the Commission itself admits is “rapidly growing.”

Meta also has clear procompetitive justifications for not wanting third parties to free-ride on the substantial investments it has made in its ecosystem, which have helped drive WhatsApp’s global success. In addition, Meta has an apparent interest in creating a high-quality user experience, which often requires restricting third-party access that could introduce security or privacy threats.

Amid this unfortunately fraught moment in transatlantic relations, this lawsuit only adds fuel to the fire by signaling that American technology companies face a whole new wave of antitrust attacks in the age of AI—mirroring those of the digital decades past. In the long run, the primary beneficiary of a divided West is China, as it advances its own ambitions for greater AI leadership and global techno-economic dominance.

Contact: Sydney Mack, [email protected]