Facebook’s Kustomer deal may hurt competition, EU regulators say

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Facebook’s acquisition of U.S. customer service startup Kustomer may hurt competition and boost its market power in online advertising, European Union antitrust regulators warned on Monday as they opened a full-scale investigation into the deal.

The move by the European Commission comes amid regulatory concerns on both sides of the Atlantic that a buying spree of startups by big firms, which normally don’t trigger competition scrutiny because of the low value of the deal, may be so-called killer acquisitions aimed at closing down nascent rivals.

Facebook, the world’s largest social network, announced the purchase of Kustomer to scale up its instant messaging app WhatsApp in November last year.