Turkish competition watchdog imposes daily fine of $160,000 on Meta

ANKARA

Türkiye’s competition board has declared that it started to fine Facebook-parent company Meta Platforms 4.8 million Turkish Liras ($160,000) per day over failure to fulfill its obligations on data collection from users.

In 2021, the Competition Authority initiated a probe in response to the software update imposed by WhatsApp on its users, mandating data sharing.

Meta asserted that this update would not be enforced in Türkiye, assuring users, including those who had already approved the updated version, that they could continue using WhatsApp with the former version. Users in Türkiye were assured they would not receive notifications prompting them to consent to the mentioned update.

The boards earlier stated that Meta, by amalgamating data from its Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp services, hindered the operations of competitors in social networking and online video advertising markets. Meta was found to be creating barriers to market entry, impacting effective competition, according to the Turkish board.

Furthermore, Meta was obliged to take measures to remedy the breach and establish effective competition in the market. Meta was required to report the initial set of measures to rectify the violation to the Competition Authority by Dec. 9, 2023.

With Meta’s failure to take required actions, the authority decided to impose an administrative fine of almost 4.8 million liras for each day from Dec. 12, 2023.

As of Jan. 10, the fine exceeded 140 million liras and is set to continue to increase further.

The board earlier initiated another investigation into Meta over allegations of competition law violation by linking its two social media platforms, Threads and Instagram.