May 2024 – On 8 May 2024, the Turkish Competition Authority (the “Authority”) issued an announcement regarding its decision on META Platforms, Inc. (“META”)—the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. With this decision, the Authority has imposed an administrative fine on META of TRY 551,557,589.86 (approximately USD 17.1 million).
Background
On 20 October 2022, the Authority decided that META:
- made the operations of its competitors engaged in social networking services and online display advertising markets more difficult; and
- created an entry barrier to the market by aggregating the data collected from Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp services.
Consequently, the Authority imposed an administrative fine on META of TRY 346,717,193.40 (approximately USD 10.8 million).
The Authority also imposed obligations on META to submit to the Authority within one month following the issuance of the reasoned decision the measures META will take to:
- remedy the violation;
- ensure the restoration of effective competition in the market; and
- fulfil the measures submitted within six months and submit periodic reports to the Authority once a year for five years.
As part of these obligations, the Authority required META to obtain renewed consent from users who gave their consent prior to the implementation of the obligation under the compliance measure to aggregate their data between the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp services.
The proposed compliance measures submitted by META to the Authority were discussed at the meeting of the Authority on 21 December 2023. The Authority assessed that the compliance measures were not sufficient to meet the obligation stated in the decision dated 20 October 2022 to "submit the necessary measures to the Authority within 1 (one) month at the latest from the issuance of the reasoned decision in order to remedy the specified violation and to ensure the restoration of effective competition in the market".
The Authority also included the following findings on the compliance measures submitted by META, deeming the proposals insufficient to address concerns:
- designed in a way to guide users to give consent to data aggregation;
- insufficient transparency;
- failure to inform users that they can still use the application if they refuse to aggregate data between their accounts; and
- failure to provide a screen with the same ease for users who choose not to give consent to data aggregation compared to users who choose to give consent.
Accordingly, with its decision dated 21 December 2023, the Authority decided to impose an administrative fine on META at the rate of %0.05 of its gross revenues for the 2022 calendar year for each day starting from 12 December 2023 until the compliance measures that will remedy the anti-competitive concerns arising within the scope of the relevant matter are submitted to the Authority.
Decision overview
At its meeting dated 24 April 2024, the Authority deemed the compliance measures submitted by META sufficient to end the violation and to ensure the restoration of effective competition in the market.
In accordance with the compliance measures submitted by META:
- unless users link their accounts on the Facebook and Instagram applications through the "Accounts Centre", META will not be able to aggregate their personal data;
- users who previously linked their accounts will see a new confirmation screen as of June 2024 that will allow users to separate their previously linked account(s) in a simple way;
- in addition to this option, users will be informed in detail on this screen about which data will be aggregated and how;
- users will have the opportunity to aggregate the data of their account(s) through the Accounts Centre if they change their minds later.
Conclusion
As a result, the Authority has ceased the daily administrative fine imposed on META and imposed a total administrative fine of TRY 551,557,589.86 (approximately USD 17.1 million) for the 115-day period from 12 December 2023 to 4 April 2024.