The Italian antitrust authority has requested American metaverse company to suspend restrictions on competitors.

According to a report from the Italian news agency Ansa, the Italian antitrust authority, the Competition and Market Authority, has ordered the American metaverse platform company to temporarily suspend certain terms that could exclude its competitors' AI chatbot services from the communication application WhatsApp. WhatsApp is an instant messaging application launched by the metaverse platform company's subsidiary, Worthy App. The Italian Competition and Market Authority said in a statement that its investigation is focusing on the metaverse platform's integration of its own AI service "Meta AI" into WhatsApp, potentially excluding competitors' AI chatbot services, and whether this constitutes an abuse of the company's dominant market position. The statement believes that this could restrict output, market access, or technological development in the AI chatbot services market, thus harming consumer interests. The Italian Competition and Market Authority also stated that the actions of the metaverse platform could cause "serious and irreversible harm" to competition in related markets. The metaverse platform has expressed opposition to this decision. A spokesperson for the company stated that the decision is fundamentally flawed, as other AI chatbots accessing the company's platform through the business application programming interface put pressure on existing systems that were not originally designed to support such uses. The spokesperson emphasized that the Italian antitrust authority's view of WhatsApp as somewhat equivalent to an "app store" is not agreed upon by the company.