ROME (Reuters) – The Chinese artificial intelligence app DeepSeek, which surged in popularity this week and sparked a sell-off in technology stocks, appeared to be unavailable on Wednesday in Apple and Google app stores in Italy.
A notice displayed to Italian customers on Apple App Store said the app was “currently not available in the country or area you are in. A message on the Google app platform, said the download “was not supported” in Italy.
The cause of the outage was not immediately clear.
DeepSeek seemed to be still operational for Italian users who had previously downloaded the application, and was available for download and working on Wednesday in other European Union countries and in Britain.
Its disappearance came after Italy’s data protection authority said on Tuesday it was seeking answers from DeepSeek on its use of personal data in one of the first regulatory moves targeting the Chinese start-up.
The Italian regulator, known as the Garante, said it wanted to know what personal data is collected, from which sources, for what purposes, on what legal basis and whether it is stored in China. It gave DeepSeek and its affiliated companies 20 days to respond.
The Garante is one of Europe’s most active watchdogs on the use of AI. Two years ago it briefly banned the use of Microsoft-backed ChatGPT over suspected breaches of EU privacy rules.
Last month it fined OpenAI 15 million euros ($15.6 million)after closing an investigation into its use of personal data.
DeepSeek last week launched a free AI assistant that it says uses less data at a fraction of the cost of incumbent services. By Monday, the assistant had overtaken U.S. rival ChatGPT in downloads from Apple’s App Store, sparking a panic among tech stock investors.
($1 = 0.9618 euros)
(Reporting by Elvira Pollina and Stefano Bernabei; Writing by Keith Weir, editing by Alvise Armellini and Louise Heavens)
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