(1) to launch a fully fledged investigation,
ex officio, against Facebook Inc, Facebook Ireland Ltd, WhatsApp Inc and WhatsApp LLC (together, Facebook ) in order to assess whether they had violated Article 6 of Law 4054 on the Protection of Competition. Moreover, the Competition Board imposed an interim measure against WhatsApp pursuant to Article 9 of Law 4054 after WhatsApp amended its terms of use and privacy policy to require its users to share data with other Facebook companies.(2)
Background information
In its decision, the Competition Board provided a general overview of the investigated parties and their practices before delving into a substantial assessment.
WhatsApp Inc was established in 2009 in the United States. It is available on smartphones and app stores globally, as a platform that provides instant messaging and voice and video calling services.(3) At present, WhatsApp is offered to users free of charge without ads. In 2014 it was acquired by Facebook Inc,(4) w