Santiago, September 26, 2025 — Chile’s National Economic Prosecutor’s Office (FNE) has closed its investigation into WhatsApp LLC and Meta Platforms Inc., finding no evidence of anticompetitive conduct related to the 2021 update of WhatsApp’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
The inquiry, led by the FNE’s Antitrust Division, began after a complaint alleged that the updated policies would allow WhatsApp to transfer and consolidate user data with other Meta-owned services — a move critics said could strengthen Meta’s position in the digital communications market.
The FNE’s analysis focused on two key markets: Over-the-Top (OTT) instant messaging between individuals, where WhatsApp is the dominant player in Chile, and business-to-consumer communication services, where the company operates through WhatsApp Business and WhatsApp Business API.
The agency determined that WhatsApp held a dominant position only in the person-to-person messaging segment, driven by its extensive market share and high penetration among Chilean users.
Following a detailed review, the FNE concluded that the 2021 update did not expand WhatsApp’s ability to extract or share user data with Meta, nor did it increase the volume of information collected. The regulator noted that messages exchanged between users remain end-to-end encrypted, preventing WhatsApp, Facebook, or any other Meta service from accessing their content.
As a result, the FNE determined that the update did not raise antitrust concerns under Chilean competition law.
National Economic Prosecutor Jorge Grunberg emphasized that this case marks the first time the FNE has formally examined the intersection between personal data practices and competition policy in digital markets.
“Personal data plays an increasingly central role for online platforms and digital business models,” said Grunberg. “It is therefore critical to recognize both the importance of protecting personal information and the potential competitive risks when companies with market power collect and process more data than necessary for commercial purposes.”
Grunberg noted that data-driven strategies often influence how firms compete in the digital economy, and excessive or opaque data collection could, in certain contexts, pose risks to consumer welfare and market fairness.
However, the FNE clarified that the investigation was limited to WhatsApp’s 2021 update and did not assess Meta’s data practices in connection with its other platforms, such as Facebook or Instagram. Those issues, the agency said, could be subject to separate examination if they affect competition in different markets.
