Competition Board fines META 1.2 billion Turkish liras ($37m)

Competition Board levies a hefty 1.2 billion Turkish lira ($37m) fine on META following the completion of two investigations

The Competition Board has completed two investigations initiated against the United States-based company META.

The Board imposed a fine of 1 billion 234 million Turkish liras ($37 million) on the company, which owns applications such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram.

The first investigation was launched due to the sharing of users’ data by WhatsApp with META’s other companies.

It was determined that META, by combining the data collected from its Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp services, hindered the activities of competitors in social networking services and online video advertising markets. It was decided that it created a barrier to entry into the market. Additionally, META was fined 346 million TL in administrative fines.

2 separate investigations initiated have been completed

The Board also decided to impose an administrative fine of 4,796,153 Turkish liras for each day that META did not fulfill its obligations regarding the solutions it will implement. In this context, approximately 552 million Turkish lira in administrative fines were applied for a total of 115 days.

Another investigation was initiated on the grounds that the “Threads” application within the META structure violated competition rules. The Board decided to impose a fine of 335,730,000 Turkish liras.

Users will be able to merge data between Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp services with their own consent.