Turkey says Google should comply with obligations

ANKARA-Anadolu Agency

Turkey's competition authority on Dec. 17 reiterated that Google should "completely" comply with the Turkish law as it has done in other countries.

In September 2018, Turkey’s competition board fined Google 93 million Turkish liras ($15 million) for violating competition law related to the offering of Android, its mobile operation system, as well as mobile apps and services.

This March, the board opened an investigation over claims that Google uses abusive tactics against its rivals.

In November, the board ruled that the changes Google made to its agreements with Android partners in Turkey based on the earlier ruling fell short, and so the company cannot continue to operate in Turkey under business as usual.

The board underlined that Google's investigative practices have been the subject of similar investigations before with the EU and Russian Federation.

The European Commission fined Google €4.34 billion ($4.84 billion) for breaching the EU’s antitrust rules on online advertising.

The process carried out by the Competition Authority of Russia was concluded as a result of Google's commitment to terminate these practices.

On Monday, the tech giant said it is working with Turkish officials to resolve an issue involving preloaded Android apps for smart devices "as quickly as possible".

Aiming to “immediately” comply with the Turkish law, Google said: "To do this, we have informed our partners that we have stopped approving new Android device models for launch in Turkey."

Google added that the effect of the issue is limited to newly introduced phone models, not existing ones.