Rome, July 30 (LaPresse) – “The Antitrust investigation confirms what we have denounced several times. A giant like Meta cannot integrate an AI service on WhatsApp without users explicitly requesting it, exploiting a dominant position to influence consumer choices.” This is stated by Martina Donini, national President of Udicon (Union for the Defense of Consumers). “There are two levels of concern: on one hand, the ways Meta imposes the use of its AI by integrating it into the app and making it very visible to users; on the other, the accumulation of data and interactions that risks creating a real dependence on the company’s algorithms, reducing competition and limiting users' freedom of choice,” Donini continues. “We have already reported the risks related to Meta’s use of personal data to train AI, raising doubts about privacy, effective control of information, and non-transparent profiling. But the issue is broader because consumers' freedom of choice is at stake, threatened by increasingly closed digital ecosystems, where major players try to trap users in a network of proprietary services, making alternatives difficult. It is now crucial that European and national institutions ensure that rights are not sacrificed in the name of technological development,” concludes the president.
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