In the statement made by the Competition Authority, it was reminded that the Board opened an investigation for allegedly violating the Law on the Protection of Competition by connecting Threads, made available by Meta, to the Instagram application and combining some data between the two applications.
When the company’s data combination policies are examined, it is understood that the data collected from Instagram can be transferred to Threads accounts, and the data collected through Threads can be used to provide, personalize and improve other Meta products, and to provide other corporate services by measuring and analyzing the performance of company products. It is considered that Meta’s behavior of continuing to combine user data obtained from Instagram and Threads applications, despite the obligations envisaged in the Board decision, is a serious finding indicating that the Law on the Protection of Competition has been violated. reported.
Based on the said evaluation, the statement stated that a temporary injunction decision was taken to prevent the data obtained by Meta from combining the data obtained through Threads with the data obtained from Instagram, and the following was noted:
“In the following process, solution proposals were submitted to the Authority by Meta regarding the provisional injunction decision. However, these solution proposals submitted by Meta were insufficient to address the anti-competitive concerns and were not accepted by the Board. In addition, Meta was sued 335 for not complying with the obligations imposed in accordance with the provisional injunction decision. It was decided to impose an administrative fine of one million lira. In order to address the concerns, Meta suspended Threads’ activities in Turkey as of April 29, 2024, via the Threads application, instead of presenting a new solution proposal to the Authority. “However, the commitment process initiated for the investigation continued and a commitment text was submitted to the Authority by Meta on October 30, 2024, in order to eliminate concerns regarding the binding and data merging behaviors subject to the investigation.”
“USERS WILL ALSO BE ABLE TO USE THREADS BY JUST OPENING A THREADS PROFILE WITHOUT THE REQUIREMENT OF AN INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT”
The aforementioned commitment text states that, from the date on which the Threads application will be re-launched in Turkey, both users whose accounts are currently suspended and new users will be able to use Threads by simply opening a Threads profile, without the need for an Instagram account, and unless these users choose to merge their accounts, their data obtained through Threads will be deleted. The statement stated that it will not be merged with Instagram and continued as follows:
“At the Board meeting dated November 23, 2024, it was decided that the commitments presented by Meta were accepted as they were determined within the scope of the file and could eliminate the competition problems arising from Meta’s behavior, could be fulfilled in a short time and were effectively implemented, and the ongoing investigation was concluded by making the commitments binding for Meta. “It was decided to terminate it with the number 24-45/1053-450.”
THREADS MAY BE AVAILABLE AGAIN IN TURKEY
In this context, with the commitment given, the competition investigation against “Meta” was terminated. Thus, the possibility of Threads, which was launched by Meta company as a rival to X (Twitter), to be re-launched in Turkey has emerged.