Following regulatory scrutiny, Meta has confirmed that the third-party LLM ban on WhatsApp won’t apply to users in Italy and Brazil. Here are the details.

Last October, Meta announced that companies such as OpenAI and Perplexity would not be allowed to use WhatsApp’s Business API to have the app work as a lightweight interface for conversations.

This ban, which takes effect today, doesn’t apply to LLM-based chats for situations such as customer support. Instead, it’s aimed exclusively at companies that had been using WhatsApp as a replacement, or alternative, to their own chatbot services, such as the main ChatGPT interface.

While many may see little reason to use ChatGPT through WhatsApp instead of the official app, others feel more comfortable interacting through a familiar interface, treating ChatGPT like a regular contact in their chat list.

In addition, in many countries (including Brazil), mobile carriers exempt WhatsApp from monthly data caps, making it an especially convenient option.

Following Meta’s ban announcement last October, Italy’s competition authority (AGCM) launched an investigation and concluded in late December that the move was anticompetitive, ordering Meta to reverse the ban:

According to the Authority, Meta’s conduct appears to constitute an abuse, since it may limit production, market access or technical developments in the AI Chatbot services market, to the detriment of consumers. Moreover, while the investigation is ongoing, Meta’s conduct may cause serious and irreparable harm to competition in the affected market, undermining contestability. Therefore, the Authority has ordered Meta to immediately suspend the WhatsApp Business Solution Terms in order to preserve access to the WhatsApp platform for Meta AI’s competitors. 

Now, on the same day the ban went into effect, Meta confirmed it would also exclude Brazil from the move, following a preventive measure imposed by CADE, the country’s competition watchdog. CADE also opened an administrative inquiry into WhatsApp’s new terms, and will decide on next steps after completing its investigation.

There is also an ongoing investigation in the EU, which could extend the ban exemption beyond Italy, depending on what the European Commission finds.

Be it as it may, WhatsApp’s Business Solution Terms now read:

Providers and developers of artificial intelligence or machine learning technologies, including but not limited to large language models, generative artificial intelligence platforms, general-purpose artificial intelligence assistants, or similar technologies as determined by Meta in its sole discretion (“AI Providers”), are strictly prohibited from accessing or using the WhatsApp Business Solution, whether directly or indirectly, for the purposes of providing, delivering, offering, selling, or otherwise making available such technologies when such technologies are the primary (rather than incidental or ancillary) functionality being made available for use, as determined by Meta in its sole discretion; provided, however; that such technologies may be made available to WhatsApp users who have registered phone numbers with an Italian or Brazilian country code.

In short, WhatsApp users in Italy and Brazil can continue chatting with bots like ChatGPT, while the restriction remains in place in the rest of the world, for now.

Do you use messaging apps such as WhatsApp to interact with LLMs? Let us know in the comments.

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