The Competition Authority decided to open an investigation against Meta and impose interim measures.
The investigation was initiated regarding Meta’s use of the status on WhatsApp to prevent competition.
The statement made by the Competition Authority is as follows:
“As a result of the preliminary investigation conducted to determine whether Meta Platforms, Inc., Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, WhatsApp LLC and Meta Platforms İstanbul Bilişim Hizmetleri Limited Şirketi (collectively Meta) violated Article 6 of the Law on the Protection of Competition No. 4054, the Competition Board decided on the enterprise in question, dated 14.05.2026, and numbered 26-18/536-M, and Article 41 of the same Law. An investigation was opened accordingly.
The subject of the investigation is to determine whether Meta violated Article 6 of Law No. 4054 by integrating the artificial intelligence service called Meta AI into WhatsApp and preventing third-party artificial intelligence providers from providing services via WhatsApp.
In addition, during the preliminary investigation process, it was evaluated that Meta’s behavior preventing third-party general-purpose productive artificial intelligence chatbots/assistants from providing artificial intelligence services as a primary service via WhatsApp was a serious finding indicating a violation of competition within the scope of Article 6 of Law No. 4054.
Based on the said evaluation, at the Board’s meeting dated 14.05.2026, in accordance with the fourth paragraph of Article 9 of Law No. 4054, until the final decision is made in order to prevent irreparable damages;
Implementation of provisional measures to establish the conditions that enable third party general-purpose productive artificial intelligence chat robots/assistants to offer artificial intelligence services as a primary service via WhatsApp, in a way that does not make it actually and economically difficult to provide such services, In case the obligations stipulated in the provisional measure are not fulfilled within 1 month from the notification of the reasoned decision to take temporary measures, administrative fines will be imposed on the enterprise in accordance with Article 17 of Law No. 4054. It was decided with the number 26-18/536-193.”
