It really doesn’t make sense to let Meta get away with individual apps. Everything from them is a very large platform and they should be treated like that.
Playing devils’ advocate here: Sure, the Facebook ecosystem is one giant platform, but WhatsApp is completely cut off from Facebook (at least Meta says so, and I highly doubt that myself). But, were that true, I wouldn’t be against treating them as seperate platforms.
In any case, Facebook is a “very large platform”, which at the very least means auditing. Auditing should turn up any “hidden” connections between WhatsApp and Facebook proper. I hope the DMA has enough teeth to do what it’s supposed to.
The hidden connection is “the same owners” and “the same company financing operations”. Even if there were no data connections, the sheer amount of money Facebook can shovel into it’s other enterprises would be anticompetitive. So a little bit of regulation would go a long way
It really doesn’t make sense to let Meta get away with individual apps. Everything from them is a very large platform and they should be treated like that.
Playing devils’ advocate here: Sure, the Facebook ecosystem is one giant platform, but WhatsApp is completely cut off from Facebook (at least Meta says so, and I highly doubt that myself). But, were that true, I wouldn’t be against treating them as seperate platforms.
In any case, Facebook is a “very large platform”, which at the very least means auditing. Auditing should turn up any “hidden” connections between WhatsApp and Facebook proper. I hope the DMA has enough teeth to do what it’s supposed to.
The hidden connection is “the same owners” and “the same company financing operations”. Even if there were no data connections, the sheer amount of money Facebook can shovel into it’s other enterprises would be anticompetitive. So a little bit of regulation would go a long way