BREAKING | South Africa prosecutes Facebook for ‘abuse of dominance’
Meta Platforms has been referred by South Africa’s Competition Commission for prosecution for alleged “abuse of dominance” in the country — and the regulator wants a staggering fine imposed on the US-listed company.
GovChat was launched in 2018 with the department of cooperative governance & traditional affairs and offers a “chatbot” on top of WhatsApp that is used by government to engage with citizens. It later morphed into helping government with Covid-19-related education and awareness campaigns, including the provision of disease test results. The platform allows citizens to apply for social relief and distress grants, too.
“Facebook has imposed and/or selectively enforced exclusionary terms and conditions regulating access to the WhatsApp Business API, mainly restrictions on the use of data,” the regulator said. “This is in contravention of the Competition Act… [which] prohibits a dominant firm from abusing its dominance by engaging in exclusionary conduct geared at preventing competitors or potential competitors from entering into, participating and expanding in a market.
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