Competition Authorityannounced a temporary injunction against Meta today. In addition, an administrative fine of 4.7 million TL per day was also reminded.
Competition Authority He stated the following about the temporary injunction decision: “META Platforms, Inc. An interim injunction decision was issued against (META) in the investigation initiated on suspicion of abusing its dominant position by linking Threads and Instagram applications (Interim Injunction Decision). META combines the data of users who create Threads profiles based on their Instagram accounts without providing users with a confirmation option; It was evaluated that it would cause irreparable damage until the investigation was completed.
- – Since META has been operating in the market for many years, it has a comprehensive and detailed data accumulation,
- -The size and diversity of META’s user base makes META services attractive for advertisers,
- -This situation allows META to allocate more resources for service development and makes it difficult for competitors to access advertisers and therefore financial resources, and in this context, META’s activities create an entry barrier in the market,
- -In addition, META operates as an ecosystem with the basic services and related services it offers, and this enables META to transfer the power and knowledge it gains from each service to another service and increases its market power,
detected. Within the framework of current findings; “It has been decided to take temporary measures to prevent data merging behavior that may occur as a result of the data transfer mechanism between Instagram and Threads.”
For the administrative fine of 4.7 million TL, the following are: transferred: “It was determined that META, by combining the data it collected from Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp services, made the activities of its competitors operating in the social network services and online display advertising markets difficult and created an obstacle to market entry, and some obligations were imposed.
- -In the investigation launched in 2021 against Meta Platforms Inc., Meta Platforms Ireland Limited and WhatsApp LLC (META); It was decided that he abused his dominant position by combining data collected from Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp services, that an administrative fine of 346,717,193.40 TL should be imposed on META’s economic integrity, and that META would be obliged to eliminate the violation and establish effective competition in the market.
- -The period determined for the fulfillment of the aforementioned obligations ended on 09.12.2023. The recommendations ultimately submitted to the Authority by META were not found sufficient. For this reason, with the expiration of the period given to META, it was decided to impose an administrative fine of 4,796,152.96 TL per day on META.
- -The Board asked META to obtain re-approval from users who gave their consent to the merging of their data between Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp services before the obligation within the scope of the compliance measure is implemented.
- -The confirmation screen is; It should not direct users to approve directly, it should include information that they can use the application even if users refuse, and therefore it should provide this opportunity to users who do not want to give approval with the same ease.
- – In other words, the screen notification to be presented to users by META for their preferences regarding the merging of their data between Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp services will be investigated for the reasons that it is not transparent enough, in other words, it does not contain enough information for users and is designed to guide users to approve data merging. It was not deemed sufficient to address the anti-competitive concerns addressed within the scope of
- -Thereupon, the Board decided to impose an administrative fine of 4,796,152.96 Turkish Liras on the gross revenues of 2022 for each day, starting from December 12, 2023, until the compliance measure to be proposed by META is entered into the Competition Authority’s records. “