It was Decided to Initiate an Investigation and Impose an Interim Measure on Meta Platforms, Inc., Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, WhatsApp LLC and Meta Platforms İstanbul Bilişim Hizmetleri Limited Şirketi Economic Unity

As a result of the preliminary inquiry conducted to determine whether Meta Platforms, Inc., Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, WhatsApp LLC and Meta Platforms İstanbul Bilişim Hizmetleri Limited Şirketi (together referred to as Meta) violated article 6 of the Act No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition, an investigation was initiated about the said undertaking according to article 41 of the same Act, with the Competition Board decision dated 14.05.2026 and numbered 26-18/536-M.

The subject of the investigation is to determine whether Meta violated article 6 of the Act No. 4054 by means of integrating its artificial intelligence service called Meta AI to WhatsApp and preventing third party artificial intelligence providers from offering services through WhatsApp.

In addition, during the preliminary inquiry process conducted, it was concluded that Meta’s conduct preventing third party general-purpose generative artificial intelligence chatbots/assistants from offering artificial intelligence services through WhatsApp as a primary service is a serious finding that shows a violation of competition under the scope of article 6 of the Act No. 4054.

Depending on the said consideration, in the meeting of the Board on 14.05.2026, in order to prevent irreparable damages until the final decision is taken, according to article 9(4) of the Act No. 4054, the decision numbered 26-18/536-193 was taken that

• An interim measure shall be imposed that the conditions which enable third party general-purpose generative artificial intelligence chatbots/assistants to offer artificial intelligence services through WhatsApp as a primary service shall be established in a way that will not complicate the provision of the services in question de facto and economically,
• In case the obligations stipulated in the interim measure decision are not fulfilled within one month as of the notification of the reasoned decision regarding the imposition of the interim measure, administrative fines shall be imposed to the undertaking according to article 17 of the ACT NO. 4054.