Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp gets go-ahead from European Commission
The $19bn (£11.8bn) acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook has been approved by the European Commission.
The European Commission ruled that consumers would continue to have a wide choice of alternative consumer communications apps after the transaction, such as Viber, who recently introduced a new identity as part of a global marketing push.
Commission vice president in charge of competition policy, Joaquín Almunia, said: “Consumer communications apps keep European citizens connected and are becoming increasingly popular. While Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are two of the most popular apps, most people use more than one communications app.
"We have carefully reviewed this proposed acquisition and come to the conclusion that it would not hamper competition in this dynamic and growing market. Consumers will continue to have a wide choice of consumer communications apps."
The Commission also concluded that, regardless of whether Facebook would introduce advertising on WhatsApp and/or start collecting WhatsApp user data, the transaction would not raise competition concerns.
This is because after the merger, there will continue to be a sufficient number of alternative providers to Facebook for the supply of targeted advertising, and a large amount of internet user data that are valuable for advertising purposes are not within Facebook's exclusive control.