The Competition Commission of South Africa said on Monday that it has charged Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and WhatsApp, to a tribunal for allegedly abusing its dominant position. It wants the tribunal to penalize Meta Platforms, with a “maximum penalty” of 10% of their collective revenue.
In a statement, the regulator accused Meta of “abusing its dominance by engaging in exclusionary conduct geared at preventing competitors or potential competitors from entering into, participating, and expanding in a market”.
But a spokesperson for WhatsApp said the regulator was objecting to actions meant to protect the platform’s users from abuses of WhatsApp’s terms.
According to the commission, Meta had chosen to “offboard” GovChat (a start-up that links government and citizens) and its subsidiary #LetsTalk from WhatsApp’s Business Application Programming Interface,
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It also said that the corporation has “imposed and/or selectively enforced exclusionary terms and conditions governing access to the WhatsApp Business API, namely data use limits.”
This is in contravention of the Competition Act, sections 8(1)(d)(ii), alternatively 8(1)(c) and in the further alternative 8(1)(b). The Act 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, the commission said.
Furthermore, GovChat’s lawyer Shawn van der Meule, speaking to Stuff‘s Toby Shapshak, called this “…a groundbreaking case, being one of the few abuse of dominance cases ever prosecuted by the South African Competition Commission, and the first of its kind involving digital platforms and markets.”
However, WhatsApp on the other hand, justified its decision to exclude GovChat, claiming that the startup had violated Meta’s terms of service.
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“GovChat has repeatedly refused to comply with our policies which are designed to protect citizens and their information, preferring to prioritize their own commercial interests over the public,” a Whatsapp spokesperson said. “We will continue to defend WhatsApp from abuse.”
About GovChat
In 2018, GovChat launched the GovChat platform, which allows citizens to communicate with all levels of government – national, provincial, and local – to report a range of concerns such as pothole locations and other service delivery needs.
GovChat also enables the government to transmit vital information to the public in bulk, such as tracking, testing, and immunization information for the Covid-19 system. The poor could also apply for social relief and hardship funds using GovChat.
The GovChat has given the government unprecedented real-time insight into service delivery challenges, allowing the government to provide targeted remedies.
The Offboarding Effect
The GovChat is dependent on its continued access to the WhatsApp Business API. When GovChat is removed from the WhatsApp Business API, it will have a negative impact on consumer welfare because it will reduce the efficiency of the platform, which allows the public to communicate with multiple government bodies through a single platform. It will also deprive the government of the current services (and future services such as mobile payment solutions) offered by the GovChat.
