EU Says Facebook Provided Misleading Information About WhatsApp Takeover

(RTTNews) - The European Commission has accused social networking giant Facebook for providing incorrect or misleading information during the Commission's investigation into its acquisition of WhatsApp.

The issue is that Facebook told the Commission that it would not be able to reliably automate matching between accounts on the WhatsApp and Facebook in 2014. However, recently the social giant linked Facebook and WhatsApp user accounts.

Facebook might face a multi-million euro fine for allegedly misleading European Commission.

Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, said: "Companies are obliged to give the Commission accurate information during merger investigations. They must take this obligation seriously. Our timely and effective review of mergers depends on the accuracy of the information provided by the companies involved. In this specific case, the Commission's preliminary view is that Facebook gave us incorrect or misleading information during the investigation into its acquisition of WhatsApp. Facebook now has the opportunity to respond."

Earlier this year, WhatsApp allowed its users to link their phone numbers with Facebook user identities, which will improve the service by allowing Facebook to offer better friend suggestions or displaying more relevant ads on WhatsApp users' Facebook accounts.

The Commission claims that the technical possibility of automatically matching Facebook users' IDs with WhatsApp users' IDs had already existed in 2014, and Facebook "intentionally" or "negligently" misled the EU during its merger investigations.